Ukraine Hunts for Gas to Prepare for Winter Without Russia Fuel
Last edited Wed Apr 30, 2014, 05:42 AM - Edit history (1)
Spring has barely started in Ukraine and the nation is already thinking about winters chill.
As the country finds itself close to conflict with Russia, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuks government is desperate to make sure there will be enough natural gas to heat households and keep factories running throughout the long Ukrainian winter. Thats a daunting task for a country that depends on its larger neighbor for half of its gas consumption.
With Vladimir Putin using energy to assert Russian power over its neighbor, Ukraine is sifting through its choices. They run from developing shale gas fields and spending billions of dollars on modernizing obsolete, energy-wasting industries, to building an import terminal on the Black Sea -- a multi-year project. In the coming months, Ukraine will pin its hopes on the European Union, even though the EU itself gets 30 percent of its fuel from Russian state-controlled exporter OAO Gazprom (GAZP) and hesitates to go against Russian interests.
The EU is the only place where we can get gas should Russia cut off supplies, said Dmytro Marunych, co-chairman of the Energy Strategies Fund in Kiev. Ukraine will find it hard to buy all the gas it needs in European markets, he said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-29/ukraine-hunts-for-gas-to-prepare-for-winter-without-russia-fuel.html
Slovakia signs deal to send some gas to Ukraine. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/28/ukraine-crisis-slovakia-gas-idUSL6N0NK3GK20140428 see note therein regarding limits imposed without breaching terms of Gazprom contract.