Ukraine Pushes EC on Gazprom Case

Naftogaz chief commercial officer Yuriy Vitrenko and the European Union's competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager met in Brussels April 9 to discuss Russian gas supplies to Ukraine and Europe.

Following a lengthy consultation with the market, the European Commission (EC) may decide to accept Gazprom's proposals to change the way it sells gas, as a settlement to its lengthy anti-competition case. But this is not good enough for Poland, which wants financial penalties also to be imposed. Ukraine is also critical of a settlement.

Vitrenko told Vestager that Gazprom had failed to adhere to the judgement of the Stockholm arbitration ruling, withholding both the $2.6bn in damages and the gas that had been prepaid. Immediately after the Stockholm ruling, Gazprom said it would seek to cancel the transit contract and the gas supply contract that the rulings sought to amend. It has since refused to supply any gas to the Ukrainian market.

Naftogaz, which said that it would not take Russian gas crossing its territory in lieu of money from Gazprom, is now compelled to start a formal enforcement procedure in Europe and is preparing a new claim to recover damages incurred because of Gazprom’s failure to comply with the awards, Vitrenko said.

In 2017, Naftogaz submitted its observations regarding Gazprom's proposed commitments in the separate antitrust case opened by the EC against Gazprom in 2012 concerning the EU's central and eastern European gas markets. “We regret to say that settling on the announced terms is unlikely to make Gazprom to change its uncompetitive behavior in the affected markets,” noted Vitrenko.