Ukrainian experts consider three-sided gas transport consortium to be optimal option
KYIV. Jan 19 (Interfax) - The creation of a gas transport consortium involving Ukraine, Russia, and the European Union would increase economic efficiency and lower risks of political pressures. This would be the most optimal choice, members of the Expert Council on the Development of the Gas Industry and Natural Gas Market said at a press conference at Interfax in Kyiv on Thursday.
"A three-sided consortium would prevent economically ineffective decisions from being made in favor of political interests. We always lose in a bilateral consortium," Ihor Karp, honorary director of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences' Gas Institute, said at the press conference.
"Russia should give guarantees on transit volumes while European companies would ensure demand for this gas, as well as invest fund in modernization and reconstruction of Ukraine's gas transportation system," the secretary of the Export Council and general director at LLC Neftegazstroiinformatika, Leonid Unihovsky.
He stressed that securing guarantees on transit volumes is a first-order priority for Kyiv in its negotiations for maintaining the Ukrainian gas transportation system. Unihovsky said that Slovakia is becoming Ukraine's partner because of the construction of bypass gas pipelines. Slovakia stands to lose 25 billion-27 billion cubic meters in annual gas transit.
The president of Ukraine's Oil and Gas Academy and former Deputy Fuel and Energy Minister, Bogdan Klyuk, said that the country needs to receive guarantees that the gas transportation system will be filled, adding that total transit could decrease from 120 bcm to 80 bcm a year.
He said that the modernization of Ukraine's gas transportation system necessitates a reduction in costs for fuel gas. Klyuk added that Ukrainian industry is already produce piping and other equipment of the necessary quality, which would help boost pressure in pipelines and double the distance between gas pumping stations to 200 kilometers.
It was earlier reported that natural gas transit through Ukraine to European and CIS countries went up by 5.7%, or 5.6 bcm, to 104.2 bcm in 2011. At the same time, transit to Western Europe increased by 5.9% to 101.1 bcm.