Gazprom to Resume Supplies to Ukraine on Monday

Russia’s top gas producer Gazprom said on Friday it has reached a deal with Kiev on the prepayment of gas, adding it would resume supplies to Ukraine on Monday, conditionally to the counterpart’s payments.

“Agreements have been reached just now with NAK Naftogaz of Ukraine about forward payments for gas in October” Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, said on Friday.  

Miller also met with Sigmar Gabriel, German Vice-Chancellor and Federal Minister of Economics and Energy, to discuss energy cooperation.

‘The parties considered the current state of and the outlooks for the European gas market. The meeting stressed the importance of new infrastructure projects on Russian gas supply to Europe’ reads the note released on Thursday.  

It remains unclear why Gabriel spoke about Europe’s energy security with Gazprom. It is likely that the meeting addressed cooperation opportunities between Germany and Russia, with eyes on the Nord Stream II project.

This comes around the same time Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara could drift away from cooperation with Russia in the energy sphere, looking for new partners to build its first nuclear plant. His remarks followed Russian incursions into Turkish air space during its air campaign in Syria.

Also on Friday, European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager told Reuters that the ‘EU antitrust case against Gazprom will continue despite concessions from the Russian gas producer.’