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The Ukrainian company Naftogaz is considering a new lawsuit against Russian gas giant Gazprom. This was announced on February 10th by the Executive Director of Naftogaz Ukraine Yuriy Vitrenko on his Facebook page.
Звітую про роботу на своїй новій сторійнці у Фейсбук
Posted by Yuriy Vitrenko on Sunday, February 9, 2020
“Recently, we discovered circumstances about the role of Gazprom in operations with the debt obligations of RosUkrEnergo (the company acted as an intermediary in the supply of gas to Ukraine), Through which Naftogaz suffered significant losses,” wrote Vitrenko.
According to him, “Naftogaz’s opportunities to solve these problems are currently being studied,” including through filing a claim with the “International Arbitration Court in Stockholm under a contract between Naftogaz and Gazprom for the transfer of Rosukrenergo debt obligations.”
Between 2004-2009, RosUkrEnergo acted as an intermediary between Ukraine and Russia in the supply of gas. Its co-owners were Russian Gazprom and Ukrainian businessman Dmitry Firtash.
In 2009, the company was removed from mediation, and a new gas supply contract was concluded directly between Naftogaz and Gazprom. At the same time, RosUkrEnergo owed Gazprom $1.7 billion for gas supplies.
As a result, Gazprom sold this debt to Naftogaz, for which Naftogaz confiscated 11 billion cubic meters of RosUkrEnergo gas stored in Ukrainian underground storage facilities.
Naftogaz is also submitting documents to the International Arbitration Court, in which the company requires Russia to compensate it for approximately $8 billion for assets lost as a result of Crimea becoming a part of Russia.
“This week we are completing preparations for the next submission of documents in the framework of the arbitration process against the Russian Federation regarding assets in the Crimea. This arbitration process has been going on for several years,” Vitrenko said.
The official also recalled that this arbitration does not fall under the agreement on the extension of gas transit, in accordance with which it was agreed that Neftegaz and Gazprom waive mutual judicial claims. Under this agreement, in particular, Neftegaz abandoned its lawsuit against Gazprom for $12.2 billion.
“Therefore, this arbitration does not fall under the settlement agreement with Gazprom, which Neftegaz concluded in December,” Vitrenko said.
As Ukrainian News reported, following trilateral talks on December 20th in Minsk, Ukraine, Russia and the European Commission reached a final agreement on positions on the transit of Russian gas and the settlement of mutual claims.
Ukraine and Russia agreed that under the new gas transit contract for 5 years, which could be extended after 2024, the transit volume in 2020 will be 65 billion cubic meters. m of gas, and in 2021-2024 – 40 billion cubic meters. m of gas.
The parties also agreed that Gazprom (Russia) would pay Neftogaz of Ukraine about $ 3billion by decision of the International Arbitration Court of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce by the end of 2019.
After this payment, Ukraine was to abandon the remaining claims against Gazprom regarding the reimbursement of funds related to the provision of transit services.
However, the Ukrainian side is digging for new reasons to avoid any normalization in relations. Gazprom paid what it owed as per the decision, and the situation should’ve been settled. Regardless, this simply appears to be leading to more problems and issues, predominantly caused by the Ukrainian company.
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Does so ros and the Rothschilds still control Naftogaz, or did they off load their interests?
No money for the oligarchs, so what will they pillage next?
Enough of this crap, cut it off.
And forever :)
Ukrainians proving to the world that they are duplicitous and dishonest double dealers who cannot be trusted in business. Hopefully the contract with Gasprom is clear enough to extinguish this frivolous suit.