Gazprom: Kyiv has 'nothing to say' over gas pipeline reverse criticism

The organizers of natural gas exports from Europe to Ukraine - using pipelines pumping gas in the "reverse" direction - have not reacted to Gazprom's criticism of the scheme.

"The initiators of all kinds of non-transparent, so-called reverse schemes for gas transit moving through Ukraine have not reacted at all. Apparently, they have nothing to say," Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kuprianov told journalists.

Last Wednesday Kuprianov told journalists that "physically reversing the direction of gas flow [to import gas] from Europe is impossible. There is no separate gas pipeline." Therefore, these can only be some kind of 'paper,' opaque operations, whose legality needs to be investigated: if the 'virtual reverse' uses our transit gas, that is a direct violation for which there must be an accounting," he said.

"These things are being checked and are verifiable. We have previous experience of hiring independent monitoring companies to monitor the operations with our gas in Ukraine," he said.

"We are confident that no serious European companies would participate in dubious gas deals with Ukraine that rely on Gazprom gas that doesn't belong to [Ukrainian oil and gas company] Naftogaz [Ukrainy]," he said.

It was reported earlier that Ukraine began importing natural gas from Germany through Poland in November 2012 and deliveries of natural gas from Hungary began in April 2013. In addition, gas transportation talks are underway with Slovakia and Romania. In all Ukraine hopes to receive 7 billion cubic meters of gas from suppliers in Europe. Ukraine's partner in the project is German RWE, with which Gazprom is engaged in a dispute over the terms of Russian gas exports.

Naftogaz Ukrainy has been reducing its purchases of Russian gas under contracts that contain take-or-pay provisions. Gazprom earlier presented Naftogaz with a $7-billion bill for taking up less gas than contracted in 2012.