Russia and Ukraine argue over natural gas

CNN:

A former Kremlin adviser has criticized Moscow's New Year deadline for Ukraine to accept a large gas-price increase, saying the demand indicated resurgent Russian imperialism.

Meanwhile on Saturday Europe warily watched the standoff amid warnings that its supplies could also be affected.

Ukraine has hitherto received one-third of its natural gas from Russia at the heavily subsidized rate of $50 (€42) per 1,000 cubic meters, in addition to its domestic supply and imports from Turkmenistan.

But Russia's Kremlin-controlled gas company Gazprom has now threatened to cut supplies to Ukraine on Sunday if Kiev does not agree to pay more than four times the current rate, which is closer to what most Western European countries pay.

"If Ukraine doesn't sign a contract to buy gas by the appointed hour before the New Year, then at 10 o'clock a.m. on the 1st of January we will put a complete stop to delivery of all gas from the Russian Federation to the Ukraine," said Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller. "These actions will be precise and resolute."

The company said the price rise represented a long-overdue transfer to free-market price mechanisms.

...

You have to read pretty far into the story to find that the arguement is over whether Ukraine should pay market prices for natural gas. Other stories have indicated that Ukraine is really argueing over making the move to market prices more gradual to avoid a shock to its fragile economy. It hardly sounds neo-imperialist to demand the market price.

Comments

  1. Reliapundit9:17 AM

    Hi Merv -

    I think the price increase request is more nefarious. here's why (links at my blog):

    FT:

    "Russia has provided its former Soviet neighbours with heavily subsidised gas since the USSR collapsed in 1991 – partly to keep them within its sphere of influence. But now it wants to move to market prices, for what it says are economic reasons. Gazprom, Russia’s massive state-controlled gas company, has already agreed increased prices with several former Soviet states.

    Ukraine says it is being asked to pay far more than any of those, suggesting the motive is political: to punish it for the Orange Revolution a year ago that brought the pro-western Viktor Yushchenko to power.

    Ukraine is being asked to pay $230 per 1,000 cubic metres of gas – up from $50 this year. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, all now European Union members, are paying only $110, as is Georgia, which also had a pro-democracy revolution two years ago. Belarus, loyal to Russia, pays little over $46."

    WASHPOST:

    "The chief of Russia's natural gas monopoly, OAO Gazprom, reiterated that it will halt supplies to Ukraine on Sunday morning unless a new contract is signed with its Ukrainian counterpart. ... Meanwhile, analysts said a Russian bid Thursday to buy up natural gas from another major supplier to Ukraine, Turkmenistan, would leave the Central Asian nation with little gas to sell to Ukraine."

    reliapundit: It is OBVIOUS that Putin is NOT merely trying to get Ukraine up to market price. This should make it clear that PUTIN is no better than OPEC was in the 1970's and NOT a trustworthy ally - or a safe energy resource for Europe.

    AND REMEMBER THIS: socialist, vile anti-American and former Chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schroeder is now chairman of Russia's German-Russia pipeline company which is MAJORITY OWNED BY GAZPROM. This makes him a co-conspirator in this matter with his fellow socialist Putin. THESE ARE TWO VERY BAD MEN.

    Love your Blog!
    Happy New Year!

    reliapoundit

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t...
Read more

Is the F-35 obsolete?

Headline USA: Pentagon Fires Back after Musk Calls Its Most Expensive Project ‘Obsolete’ 'Yeah, as I'm sure you can appreciate, Mr. Musk is, currently, a private citizen, I'm not going to make any comments about what a private citizen may have to say about the F-35....'   ... ... Drones appear to be replacing jets for many operations.  The Russia-Ukraine war is an example of that.  Drones are often hard to detect and can be used for intelligence operations as well as for attacking enemy targets.  It would not surprise me to see drones engaging other drones in combat.  They also cost much less than manned fighters.  
Read more