Ukraine would receive income of $15 billion in five years of transit of Russian natural gas, according to Minister of Energy and Environment Protection of Ukraine Oleksiy Orzhel. “The approximate income with which Ukraine left this meeting [the meeting in Minsk on December 20, following which Ukraine-Russia-EC signed an intergovernmental protocol], is more than $3 billion for arbitration and approximately $3 billion for transit each year during five years,” the minister wrote in his column for the Ekonomichna Pravda (Economic Truth) publication on Tuesday.
“Thus, in five-year outlook, we will receive about $18 billion, of which $3 billion is ‘natural’ money – before the New Year. And this is without any enslaving conditions regarding the purchase of Russian gas,” Orzhel said.
At the same time, he said that at the meeting in Minsk the parties made significant progress, however, at present, the risk of not signing the new contract still exists.
“The protocol is not an agreement yet. In the last week of December, our companies will draft the text. But until the agreement itself has been signed, there is no transit. Can the other side change its mind at the last moment? Yes. Are we ready for this? Yes. But if this happens, Gazprom will suffer all image losses,” the minister added.
