MOSCOW, June 7 (UPI) -- Ukraine could be charged nearly twice the amount it pays for the natural gas it gets from Russia by the fourth quarter of the year, Gazprom said.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Kiev wanted a lower price or high transit fees. Gazprom transits about 80 percent of the natural gas for European consumers through Soviet-era pipelines in Ukraine.
Alexei Miller, the top executive at Gazprom, said natural gas prices for Ukraine could eclipse the $264.30 per 1,000 cubic feet rate that Kiev paid during the first quarter.
"Consumers are worried about the price for gas in the fourth quarter of 2011 because if you put the oil products price, including on forward contracts, in the formula, we can say with a high degree of certainty that the price for gas on long-term contracts may reach $500 per 1,000 cubic meters at the end of 2011," he was quoted by Russia's state-run news agency RIA Novosti as saying.
Kiev is examining a 2009 deal brokered by Yulia Tymoshenko when she was prime minister. The current government claims it is losing money on the deal because natural gas prices were pegged to oil.
Moscow is moving forward with alternative transit options to ship natural gas around Ukraine. Kiev maintains that it's still an attractive option.
