Energy Minister claims resistance inside Ukraine to pressure on Gazprom to move gas sales points to eastern border

Acting Energy Minister Yuriy Vitrenko has said that Ukraine is resisting pressure on Russia's Gazprom to move gas transmission points for European buyers from the western to eastern border of Ukraine, unblock gas exports from Russia by independent companies, as well as exports from Central Asia.

"This is beneficial for Ukraine, since it creates additional demand for the capacity of the Ukrainian GTS for the gas transit to Europe, and also reduces the price of gas on the Ukrainian wholesale market to the level of export parity, which increases the competitiveness of its economy. The question is tens of billions of dollars for Ukraine," Vitrenko wrote on his Facebook page on Friday.

At the same time, he said that Russia at the political level is blocking all actions beneficial for Ukraine on the gas market, and now its position is actively supported by forces inside the country.

"And now agents in Ukraine are coming to the aid of the political leadership of Russia," the minister said.

At the same time, in his previous post on Friday night, Vitrenko called the protests against the possibility of buying gas from Russian companies independent of Gazprom as "strange playbooks." This concerns Rosneft, NOVATEK and large European companies producing gas in Russia. At the same time, he said that they produce "five times more than the whole of Ukraine."

According to him, such exports will be an additional source of demand for transit services through Ukraine to Europe, which Naftogaz has been demanding to unblock for many years.

"If someone 'suddenly' thought that this was bad and unpatriotic, then he should demand a ban on the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine and a ban on the import of gas of Russian origin into Ukraine," Vitrenko said.

Source: www.en.interfax.com.ua