Swiss-registered RosUkrEnergo, half owned by Russian gas giant Gazprom, is bound by a contract on 2008 natural gas supplies to Ukraine.
Yulia Tymoshenko was quoted by the government press service as saying: "We have removed an intermediary, UkrGazEnergo, on the internal market. This intermediary has virtually usurped, on a corrupt basis, the entire domestic market of Ukraine. Now we have returned the domestic gas market in Ukraine to Naftogaz, which will receive from Russia and supply the entire gas volume to Ukraine," Tymoshenko said.
The previous setup for Russian supplies to Ukraine had been criticized by Tymoshenko for corruption and non-transparency. The scheme involved monopoly exporter RosUkrEnergo and another intermediary, UkrGazEnergo.
Russia had demanded that RosUkrEnergo continue to be involved in the gas supply chain.
"Now, on the insistence of the Russian authorities and Gazprom, RosUkrEnergo will remain for some time. But it will not operate in Ukraine. It will sell gas to Naftogaz on Russian soil," Tymoshenko said.
The pledge to remove intermediaries from the scheme of Russia's natural gas supplies to Ukraine was one of the promises made by Tymoshenko and her electoral bloc at the country's parliamentary polls last fall.
Oleksandr Shlapak, first deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential press service earlier said that Ukraine's state gas company Naftogaz had finally signed a contract with RosUkrEnergo to deliver 49.8 billion cubic meters of gas at $179.5 per 1,000 cubic meters in 2008.
