UKRAINE HAS UPPER HAND IN OIL TRANSIT DISPUTE WITH RUSSIA.

Russia’s deputy minister for Fuel and Power Pyotr Nidzelski has proposed to Ukraine’s counterpart agency a compromise in the dispute over transit fees for Russian oil exports via Ukraine. Nidzelski proposed a fee of $5 per ton per 100 kilometers of pipeline, instead of the $5.2 charged by Ukraine since January 1, 1996. Ukraine had hiked the price from $4.55. Russia’s Fuel and Power Ministry had until now adamantly rejected any price increase, but Russia’s oil companies undercut the ministry’s position by accepting the hike. Ukraine’s Druzhba pipeline system, responsible for transiting the oil, rejected Nidzelski’s compromise proposal. Druzhba Director General Lubomir Bunyak responded from his Lviv headquarters that Ukraine’s higher fee had yet to catch up with prevailing international rates. Russian companies currently sent a daily average of 50,000 tons of oil to Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia through the Druzhba system. (14)

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