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Hryhoriy Nemyria
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YULIA TYMOSHENKO
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President & PM to Visit EU Pipeline Conference
23 March 2009
Published in
Inform
issue #106
See the full issue here.
President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko will together visit the EU conference on modernising Ukraine’s pipeline infrastructure on 23 March in Brussels. “Ukraine’s leaders will present a consolidated position on what is a topic of national importance,” said Oleksandr Turchynov, First Deputy Prime Minister.
The objective of the conference, hosted jointly by the European Commission and Ukrainian government, is to help Ukraine maintain its capability as a main gas transit country for EU consumers, and to foster reforms for both domestic gas supplies and international transit. The conference will bring together EU and government officials from Ukraine and other countries, as well as international financial institutions and the private sector.
See the full issue here.
President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko will together visit the EU conference on modernising Ukraine’s pipeline infrastructure on 23 March in Brussels. “Ukraine’s leaders will present a consolidated position on what is a topic of national importance,” said Oleksandr Turchynov, First Deputy Prime Minister.
The objective of the conference, hosted jointly by the European Commission and Ukrainian government, is to help Ukraine maintain its capability as a main gas transit country for EU consumers, and to foster reforms for both domestic gas supplies and international transit. The conference will bring together EU and government officials from Ukraine and other countries, as well as international financial institutions and the private sector.
An EU-Ukraine audit of Ukraine’s gas transit
infrastructure undertaken in 2006-2007 concluded
that Ukraine’s pipeline system needed a €2.5
billion modernisation programme from 2008-2013.
Ukraine’s gas transit network is the second largest in Europe. At 38,000 km long, it includes 22,000 km of high pressure pipelines, 73 compressor stations and 1,600 gas transmitting stations. Also, it contains 13 underground gas storage systems, mostly located in the western part of the country, capable of holding a total volume of about 34 billion cubic metres of gas.
According to media reports, Russia has put pressure on EU officials to postpone the Brussels conference. A source close to the conference told Interfax that Russia hopes to get support for alternative pipeline routes that bypass Ukraine, namely the Nord and South Stream projects.
Nord Stream is a planned Russo-German gas pipeline that would run under the Baltic Sea, whereas South Stream is a proposed route to transport Russian natural gas to Italy and Austria, running under the Black Sea to the south of Ukraine and through southern Europe.
The decision by Ukraine’s president and prime minister to attend the conference took place before the two leaders met at a gathering of the European People’s Party in Brussels last Thursday. There, they agreed to resume weekly meetings in Kyiv with the speaker of parliament and governor of the National Bank of Ukraine. The purpose of these weekly sessions will be to determine and agree measures to address the global financial and economic crisis.
“I am completely ready for cooperation with the president, I was and always will be, in order to protect Ukraine from the crisis,” said Ms Tymoshenko.
Ukraine’s gas transit network is the second largest in Europe. At 38,000 km long, it includes 22,000 km of high pressure pipelines, 73 compressor stations and 1,600 gas transmitting stations. Also, it contains 13 underground gas storage systems, mostly located in the western part of the country, capable of holding a total volume of about 34 billion cubic metres of gas.
According to media reports, Russia has put pressure on EU officials to postpone the Brussels conference. A source close to the conference told Interfax that Russia hopes to get support for alternative pipeline routes that bypass Ukraine, namely the Nord and South Stream projects.
Nord Stream is a planned Russo-German gas pipeline that would run under the Baltic Sea, whereas South Stream is a proposed route to transport Russian natural gas to Italy and Austria, running under the Black Sea to the south of Ukraine and through southern Europe.
The decision by Ukraine’s president and prime minister to attend the conference took place before the two leaders met at a gathering of the European People’s Party in Brussels last Thursday. There, they agreed to resume weekly meetings in Kyiv with the speaker of parliament and governor of the National Bank of Ukraine. The purpose of these weekly sessions will be to determine and agree measures to address the global financial and economic crisis.
“I am completely ready for cooperation with the president, I was and always will be, in order to protect Ukraine from the crisis,” said Ms Tymoshenko.