Ukraine to pay $280 per thousand cu m of gas in 2011
MOSCOW. Feb 21 (Interfax) - Ukraine will pay an average of $280 per thousand cubic meters of gas in 2011, a Gazprom representative told reporters.
The price of gas for Ukraine is $264 this quarter and it will rise to $275 in Q2 2011, said Anatoly Podmyshalsky, head of the Russian gas giant's department for CIS countries.
Gazprom will pay $2.7 billion-$2.75 billion in fees for gas transit across Ukraine, he said.
"Oil isn't falling so there'll be some growth. The average forecast is such," he said.
Podmyshalsky said during a roundtable on European energy issues that Gazprom planned to supply around 40 billion cubic meters of gas to Ukraine in 2011, up 9.7% from 36.463 bcm in 2010.
He said Gazprom paid Ukraine $1.2 billion for gas transit in 2009 and $2.6 billion in 2010.
Ukraine's 2011 budget envisages an average imported gas price of $269 per thousand cu m.
The price of Russian gas is based on a formula that takes changes in the price of fuel oil and gasoil into account, according to Russian-Ukrainian gas contracts signed in January 209 for the period to 2020.
Ukraine has repeatedly talked of the need to review the formula for importing Russian gas in contracts between Gazprom and Ukraine's Naftogaz, in particular the vase price of $450 per thousand cu m.
Gazprom's Podmyshalsky also said during the roundtable that Ukraine had invested $212 million in the modernization of its gas transmission network in 2010 and expects to invest $300 million in 2011.
He said the pipeline system needed $6.5 billion of investment by 2018 and $3 billion of it urgently. The European Union thinks this estimate is too low, he said.