Eurasian Energy Briefs

Igor Putin

Price for Russian gas to Ukraine increases.

In the 4th quarter of 2009 Ukraine will pay Gazprom $205-210 for 1,000 cubic meters of gas, a slightly higher price than in the 3rd quarter according to Ukrainian Naftohaz spokesman Anatoliy Podmyshlansky.

Podmyshlansky added that Naftohaz intended to buy 32 billion cubic meters of Russian gas in 2010 which is in line with the lower limit allowed in the January 2009 contract. The spokesman also reported that in the first 8 months of2009, Ukraine bought 14.8 billion cubic meters of gas from Gazprom.

Two Putin’s Own RosGas.

The Russian daily Vedomosti reported on September 9 that the owners of RosGas, a company registered in Zug Switzerland which bought Emfesz Kft, the Hungarian gas trader owned by Ukrainian businessman Dmytro Firtash, are Sergei Prokopyev, Oleg Putin and his brother Igor Putin.

Dmitry Peskov, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s press secretary told the press that the two brothers are not related to his boss. Igor Putin however, refused to tell the Russian paper if he was related to the prime minister, but is certain that their ancestors came from the same village. According to his biography published on the Russian website Lyudy, it appears that Igor’s father was one of three brothers of Vladimir Putin’s father.

The sale of Emfesz Kft has been linked to the ongoing scandal surrounding the Swiss-based gas intermediary RosUkrEnergo (RUE), 50 percent owned by Gazprom and 50 percent by Firtash and his partners.

RUE was dropped from the Ukrainian-Russian gas trade in January 2009 at the insistence of Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko who claimed that the company was a “criminal scheme.”