(Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Slovakia that Russia’s Gazprom would discover alternative routes to ship contracted gasoline to Slovakia after the tip of transit via Ukraine, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico mentioned on Friday.
Fico met Putin in Moscow on Dec. 22 to debate gasoline and the warfare in Ukraine after Ukraine determined to not enable Russian gasoline flows via Ukraine from Jan. 1.
Fico has threatened to take retaliatory measures towards Kyiv as Slovakia needed to proceed receiving Russian gasoline via Ukraine to maintain prices down and maintain incomes transit nation income from onward gasoline shipments to Europe.
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“I spoke to Putin a few contract between us and Gazprom, which says that they need to someway ship the gasoline to us,” Fico advised a parliamentary committee.
“We’re in a position to push one thing via the southern move (route via Turkey), however to this point we now have storage, Slovak consumption is secured.”
Fico mentioned Putin assured that Russia would meets its obligations, though capability within the TurkStream pipeline and connecting route taking Russian gasoline via Turkey to Europe was restricted.
“President Putin assured that they are going to honour their commitments,” Fico mentioned.
Half may very well be delivered via western Europe, Fico mentioned, referring to Slovakia’s pipeline connections to gasoline networks of central and west European neighbours.
Fico has argued Europe suffered multi-billion euro losses from an increase in gasoline costs attributable to the absence of round 13.5 billion cubic metres of gasoline that flowed via Ukraine final 12 months, together with round 3 bcm for Slovak consumption.
Fico mentioned an settlement had been near proceed shipments via Ukraine with Russian gasoline altering possession earlier than coming into Ukraine underneath an settlement involving Azerbaijan or the Slovak gasoline importer SPP, however Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy rejected extending any gasoline flows via Ukraine on the EU’s December summit.
(Reporting by Jan Lopatka in Prague;Enhancing by Elaine Hardcastle)
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