By Country / Russia
Ukraine Seals Natural Gas Deal With Russia, Central Asia
February 02, 2006
A worker checks the gas valve at the Boyarka gas station outside Kyiv (file photo) (epa)
Yekhanurov said he expected a deal to be made public later today.
Ukraine's Naftogaz state energy company and Russia's natural gas monopoly Gazprom agreed to set up the joint venture under a deal earlier this month that ended a bitter dispute over the price Ukraine pays for Russian natural gas supplies.
Russian and Ukrainian officials have been holding two days of talks trying to finalize the agreement.
The joint venture will be set up between Ukraine's Naftogaz and RosUkrEnergo, an Swiss-registered intermediary equally owned by Gazprom and a group of secret investors.
The agreement has raised criticism in Ukraine because of the shadowy ownership of the RosUkrEnergo company.
Meanwhile, the spokesman for Ukraine's state controlled Naftogaz company, Eduard Zaniuk, said today Ukraine will receive up to 600 billion cubic meters of gas annually from the newly-created joint venture.
(Ukrainska pravda, Interfax-Ukraine, AP)