Russian Gas Supplies To Ukraine Halted

Russia’s Gazprom said Wednesday that it will suspend delivery of gas to Ukraine, until the latter’s state-owned gas company Naftogaz makes an advance payment.

“The customs [officials] stopped at the border both the energy and the coking coal ordered by the Ukrainian consumers”, the source in one of the coal companies has told Kommersant. There has been no request for gas deliveries from Ukraine’s Naftogaz.

Russian Federation and Ukraine – locked in a bitter feud since Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 – have been involved in a festering gas pricing dispute that has seen supplies repeatedly cut off. Under the deal, Russian Federation lowered the price it charged Ukraine to the same level granted to neighboring countries, from $251 per 1,000 cubic meters to about $230. Ukraine’s gas storage tanks just over 50% percent full – that data is from Gas Infrastructure Europe, according to Reuters.

Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn said this week that Kiev had enough gas in reserve to ensure it was not critical for it to buy gas from Russian Federation at this stage.

The electricity feed from Ukraine was cut at 00:25 am (2225 GMT), the Crimean branch of Russia’s emergency situations ministry said in a statement.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk also announced that his government has chose to close the country’s airspace to all Russian planes as “an issue of the national security as well as a response to Russia’s aggressive actions'”.

A previous cut-off in 2009 caused serious disruptions in shipments to European Union countries at the height of winter.

Gazprom is a dominant supplier of gas for many Central and Eastern European countries while almost half of Europe’s consumption of natural gas travels through Ukraine before entering the region.

Ukraine last month banned all Russian airlines from flying into Ukraine but Russian planes have been allowed to fly over its territory.