Naftogaz Asks Cabinet's Approval to Buy 50 bcm of Gas from Central Asia

Naftogaz of Ukraine’s CEO, Oleh Dubina, asked Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers permission to purchase 50 bcm of natural gas from Central Asia, according to Ukrainian News. Dubina said that at the moment, Naftogaz is unable to buy imported gas from Ukrgaz-Energo and RosUkrEnergo, as the companies do not provide proper documentation and agreements. Vladimir Nesterenko: The announcement is rather intriguing, and looks like nothing more than pressure on the intermediaries (RosUkrEnergo and Ukrgaz-Energo). No Central Asian countries, Turkmenistan in particular, have enough volume, nor sufficient capacity pipelines. Turkmenistan used to be the major source of Central Asian gas, with exports amounting to around 60 bcm. Out of that, 50 bcm was contracted by Gazprom in 2006, of which ~35-37 bcm was then resold to Ukraine through RosUkrEnergo. The other ~10 bcm was supplied to Iran. In the beginning of 2008, Turkmenistan stopped deliveries to Iran, as they said, for technical reasons. Even if the contract with Iran is broken, the country will still have insufficient spare volumes to supply to Ukraine.