KIEV, Ukraine, June 20 (UPI) -- It would cost at least $3.5 billion to update the natural gas transmission network through Ukraine, an official at state utility Naftogaz said from Kiev.
The gas transit network through Ukraine includes more than 23,300 miles of pipeline and transports as much as 4.9 trillion cubic feet of Russian natural gas each year to consumers in the European Union.
Vadim Chuprun, deputy chief executive officer at Naftogaz, said it would cost about $3.5 billion to update the network, which he said was much cheaper than building new routes, Russia's state-run news agency RIA Novosti reports.
Contract disputes between Kiev and Moscow prompted Russian gas company Gazprom to shut of the gas to Ukraine in 2009. This left Europeans in the cold for two weeks and sparked a race to build alternative pipelines that would bypass geopolitically sensitive territory in Ukraine.
Gazprom is nearly finished with its Nord Stream natural gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea. Kiev argues it would be much cheaper for Moscow to upgrade existing networks than to build its other alternative, South Stream, which is beleaguered by the cost of building lines through the Turkish waters of the Black Sea.
Moscow had said it remains invested in Ukraine's transit system but wouldn't abandon the rival pipeline projects.
