The attraction of a European company to the management of the Ukrainian gas transport system (GTS) would allow the country to retain the status of a large natural gas transit country, Naftogaz Ukrainy Board Chairman Andriy Kobolev has said.
“We again, as a team of Naftogaz, call on all parties involved in the discussion of processes around the Ukrainian GTS to hear one obvious, to our opinion, fact: without attracting a large and transparent European partner it would be almost impossible to retain transit across Ukraine,” he said.
He said that the division of Naftogaz Ukrainy into operation segments with the transfer of property used by Ukrtransgaz now for transportation of gas to Trunk Gas Pipelines of Ukraine company should continue.
“If we try to involve a partner in the existing legal structure of Ukrtransgaz, to which only Ihor Kolomoisky has claims to return around 11 billion cubic meters of gas, the partner would not go there,” he said.
Kobolev recalled that at present the negotiations with a large European company which was interested in entering the Ukrainian GTS management were underway.
“We hope that the attraction of the European company to the management of the Ukrainian GTS would retain a lion’s share of the GTS. This would help us to retain gas transiting. The issue of the potential reduction of the capacity should be raised only when it is clear whether Ukraine retains gas transit after 2019. It is too early to make a decision on mothballing a part of pipelines with this vagueness,” he said. (Interfax-Ukraine/Business World Magazine)