Nazftogaz and RosUkrEnergo JV fails to materialise
Ukrainian Nazftogaz and RosUkrEnergo (RUE), a Swiss registered intermediary company, have so far failed to sign an agreement to establish a joint venture company to sell gas to Ukraine. The deal was scheduled for completion in January.
Ukrainian Fuel and Energy Minister Ivan Plachkov said earlier this month that the joint venture would not hold a monopoly on natural gas deliveries to Ukraine. “With the total balance of deliveries and consumption in Ukraine at 76 billion cubic metres (Gm3) annually, 42 Gm3 will be delivered by Naftogaz [and the remaining] 34 Gm3 by the joint venture,” he said, in comments reported by Russian state-run newswire Ria Novosti.
Ukrainian opposition groups have accused RUE (half-owned by Gazprom and half by Austria’s Raiffeisen Investment AG on behalf of unnamed individuals) of having links to organised crime, accusations which the company denies. While both parties have down played their inability to finalise the contract, Ukraine’s anti-monopoly committee says it has not received sufficient information about RUE to approve the deal. Professor Jonathan Stern, director of gas research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies told EGM that there appeared to be two issues blocking agreement on the JV: the undisclosed shareholders behind RUE and Ukrainian suspicions that Gazprom is attempting to wrench control of the Ukrainian pipeline network — which delivers 80% of Russia’s gas to Europe — away from the Ukrainians. One sticking point seems to be whether the JV delivers gas only to the Russia-Ukraine border or actually into Ukraine, while another centres on the amount of equity Naftogaz is willing to surrender as part of the JV. “I don’t think they can solve the equity issue very quickly,” Stern added.
An article published in Novaya Gazeta on 16th January 2006 entitled “Who stayed on the pipeline” sheds more light on RosUkrEnergo.
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