Chief executive officers of both the Russian company Gazprom, and Ukrainian state oil and gas firm Naftogaz will further consult and continue talks in the next days over gas supply issue, according to a European Commission statement issued Monday.
The statement was issued after a trilateral energy meeting between the European Union (EU), Russia and Ukraine as well as a bilateral meeting between both companies on the ongoing gas supply issue were held in Brussels Monday.
Once the companies' talks have led to a package proposal, both parties will report back to their ministries, with the aim to bring about another trilateral energy meeting between EU, Russia and Ukraine, the statement said.
It was agreed that as long as these talks are ongoing, there will be no interruption of delivery, and no prepayment for gas deliveries for June, and no party will go to Stockholm for arbitration, the statement said.
"The result of this discussion was that both CEO's agreed on a joined proposal for a package type solution dealing with a time plan for the payment of open invoices as well as plan on a future price which will be considered appropriate for both sides and which would apply for the future," EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said at a press conference after the trilateral meeting.
He said his aim is to ensure that a future price would deal with all legal disagreements at least until June 2015, which would ensure security of gas supply for at least a year.
"(It will) ... also permit us to use storage or reserves which might be needed in the case of a potentially long and cold winter," added Oettinger.
He estimated that the price would be above the 268 U.S. dollars per 1000 cubic meter, a price Ukraine wants, and would be below the 485 U.S. dollars last charged by Ruassia.
Russia confirmed Monday it had received 786 million U.S. dollars in partial covering of Ukraine's gas debt, and had rescheduled a prepayment scheme due to start from June 9.
Two money transfers had been made as payment for gas supplies in February and March 2014, when Naftogaz took 1.64 billion and 1.8 billion cubic meters of gas respectively at a price of 268.5 dollars per 1,000 cubic meters, according to Russia's Energy Ministry.
In 2010, Russia and Ukraine signed a gas-for-fleet agreement, under which Moscow offered a discounted gas price in exchange for extending its lease of its Black Sea fleet facility in Crimea for another 25 years.
In April, Moscow declared the pact no longer valid as Crimea joined Russia in March. Citing Kiev's non-fulfillment of its debt obligations and "changing circumstances" over Crimea, Gazprom canceled discounts on gas supplies to Ukraine and set a price of 485 dollars per 1,000 cubic meters, which Kiev called overpriced and wouldn't accept.
