Zelenskiy says Ukraine in talks to send Azeri gas to EU, Bloomberg reports
July 3 (Reuters) - Ukraine is in talks to send natural gas from Azerbaijan to the European Union as it seeks to maintain its role as a transit country and help Western neighbours ensure their energy security, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview with Bloomberg News on Wednesday.
A deal to replace Russian gas with Azeri gas is one of the proposals being discussed, Zelenskiy told Bloomberg News.
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"It’s the cabinet officials who are dealing with this now," he said.
Ukraine's energy ministry and the state energy company Naftogaz did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
Despite more than two years of full-scale war with Russia, Ukraine still transmits close to 15 billion cubic metres (bcm) per year of Russian gas to Europe, though a fraction of the 150 bcm of piped gas that flowed before.
Ukrainian officials have repeatedly said that Kyiv will not extenda deal with Russia's Gazprom when it expires at the end of the year.
Ukraine does not share a border with Azerbaijan, so any Azeri gas would still have to be piped through Russia.
Last month Hikmat Hajiyev, an Azeri presidential advisor, told Reuters that the EU and Ukraine have asked Azerbaijan to facilitate discussionswith Russia regarding a gas transit deal.
The EU has cut most of its Russian gas imports but some central European countries still depend on gas from Russia via a pipeline that crosses Ukraine, including Austria which still receives most of its gas through this route.
(Reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru and Olena Harmash in Kyiv; editing by Jason Neely)