BRUSSELS: The EU is exploring alternative gas sources for Ukraine, the European Commission said yesterday, a day after Russia cut off a key energy flow that also feeds Europe. With the Russian gas supply to Ukraine now halted, the EU is considering ways to replenish Kiev with imports from neighbouring Poland, Hungary and Slovakia.
Moscow is strongly opposed to so-called “reverse flows”, but the European Commission said the process was perfectly legal. “The option of the reverse flows ... is legally perfectly sound,” said the EU’s Energy Commission spokeswoman Sabine Berger.
“There are possibilities (for Ukraine) to buy gas from European companies,” she said.
Ever since the Ukraine-Russia gas feud erupted earlier this year, Gazprom has cast doubt on the legality of European companies, who are locked into their own Gazprom contracts, pumping gas back into Ukraine.
European energy groups “do not have the right to do that,” Miller said again on Monday.
A Ukrainian delegation set out for Budapest on Tuesday to confirm support for “reverse flows”, with Kiev confident it can win a cheaper price than what Russia is willing to offer.
Weeks of acrimonious debt and price negotiations broke up on Monday with Russia walking away from a compromise solution proposed in Kiev by the European Union’s energy commissioner.
Ukraine receives half its gas from Russia and transports 15 percent of the fuel consumed in Europe. AFP
