Ukraine in Talks on Gas

By The Moscow Times

May 15, 2011

KIEV — Ukraine began formal negotiations with Russia to secure a new price formula for imports of Russian gas, replacing that agreed on in January 2009, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Friday.

"Negotiations have just begun. … I do not doubt that we will arrive at a formula that is acceptable to us," Azarov said.

The government says the 2009 agreement, signed when Yulia Tymoshenko was in power, set an unfairly high price for Russian gas supplies. The agreement set prices for Russian deliveries on the basis of the prices for oil products, which have since rocketed. It also set a base price of $450 per 1,000 cubic meters, the highest in Europe.

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