After Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Kyiv stuck to the contract with Gazprom, agreed in 2019, that allowed Russian gas to flow through the country to Europe, in order to support the EU as Moscow cut supplies to the bloc that had been arriving by other routes, the Naftogaz chief said.
Kyiv made about $1bn in transit fees a year, but the majority was spent on maintenance of gas transit infrastructure, said Serhiy Makagon, former chief executive of Ukraine’s transit system.
But the transit has added about $5bn a year to Moscow’s war coffers, going directly against Ukraine’s pleas to western allies to impose sanctions on Russian fuels.
Azerbaijan’s state oil company did not respond to a request for comment.
Azerbaijan has an agreement to double its gas exports to the EU by 2027. But without long-term contracts agreed, Baku is struggling to raise the finance needed to drill deeper into the Caspian Sea to extract the gas required to meet the target.
A deal is unlikely to be agreed until later in the year, Chernyshov said, but keeping gas flowing through Ukraine’s pipelines to European countries could be crucial to the war-torn country’s future plans to export gas.
An EU diplomat said a harsh winter or strong demand for supplies of liquefied natural gas in Asia, which have to a large extent replaced the bloc’s Russian imports, “could lead to a critical situation this winter”.
Makagon said the drive to covertly continue importing Russian gas might be driven by pressure from pro-Russian politicians in the neighbouring EU countries, along with the interests of traders.
“Russia is critically interested to keep their foot in the European gas market door through Slovakia and Hungary. They are interested to be present in those countries to support pro-Russian political forces there,” he said.
Source link : https://www.ft.com/content/d826f419-1ee2-4113-b429-68cbb5e64a25
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Publish date : 2024-07-28 04:00:42
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