Ukraine Seeks Russia Gas Deal After Pro-Europe Poll Win
Ukraine resumes talks today with Russia on securing winter gas supplies after voters in the war-torn country overwhelmingly elected pro-European parties to power.
Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuri Prodan is meeting Russian counterpart Alexander Novak in Brussels for negotiations brokered by European Union Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger, who told Germanys ZDF TV theres a 50 percent chance of a deal.
Ukraine and the EU are seeking to avoid a repeat of 2006 and 2009, when disputes over gas volumes and prices prompted Russian exporter OAO Gazprom (GAZP) to cut supplies, leading to shortages across Europe amid freezing temperatures.
Standoff in Ukraine
A crisis is possible at any moment, said Alexey Grivach, deputy head of the Moscow-based National Energy Security Fund consulting company. Ukrainian elections have passed, which removes excessive rigidity from talks, but Ukraine is still lacking money for future gas.
Gazprom stopped supplying its Ukrainian partner, NAK Naftogaz Ukrainy, in June because of unpaid bills as fighting raged between pro-Russian rebels and government forces in the countrys easternmost regions. The 28-nation EU, which depends on Russian gas piped via Ukraine for 15 percent of its supply, proposed an interim deal last month to restart deliveries.
The talks come as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko moves to form a government among the pro-European parties that gained a constitutional two-thirds majority in the parliamentary election. Poroshenko told two of the biggest winners, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi, heading the Peoples Front and Samopomich parties, respectively, that he wants a government formed within 10 days.
Poroshenkos own bloc has 21.8 percent of the vote, neck-and-neck with the Peoples Front, taking 22.2 percent, with 98 percent of ballots counted. Final results are due today or tomorrow.
If Russia sought to drag out gas talks in hope of getting a more pliable premier than Yatsenyuk, it has failed, said Alexander Paraschiy, an analyst at Concorde Capital in Kiev.
Yatsenyuk said before the vote he was quite skeptical Ukraine could build ties with Russia after a seven-month conflict that the United Nations says has killed 3,700 people and displaced 1 million. While the Kremlin denies involvement, Ukraine, the U.S. and EU blame Russia for fueling unrest.
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Ukraine Seeks Russia Gas Deal After Pro-Europe Poll Win