Conditions proposed to Ukraine on gas shipments better than those in place under Yanukovych - Miller
GORKI. June 16 (Interfax) - The conditions that were proposed to Kyiv during gas talks were better than the conditions in place under former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said at a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
Firstly, the Russian side was ready to guarantee that the discount of $100 per 1,000 cubic meters would not change and ultimately proposed "guaranteeing no change in the discount until the current contract expires, that is, until the end of 2019," Miller said.
Secondly, "we virtually proposed to our Ukrainian colleagues suspending the take-or-pay provision for 2014," he said.
"The situation of the Ukrainian economic is indeed grave and we understand that Naftogaz Ukrainy will find it difficult if not impossible to commit to taking the minimum annual contracted amount. At the beginning we reduced this to 34 billion cubic meters, then 27 billion, and finally we offered to allow Ukraine to take whatever amount in 2014 it felt comfortable with, at $385 per 1,000 cubic meters," Miller said.
"Of course, such gas supply provisions were not available during Yanukovych's tenure," he said.
"In other words, they were offered ultra-discount terms, even compared to the gas cooperation terms that existed under the previous president. Nonetheless, they refused to acccept those terms and, in effect, artificially created a gas crisis," Medvedev said.