Azarov lit up with a "new" gas idea, or "UkrKubyshka-2"
According to the tradition that has developed in recent years, as soon as the first cold days come outside the window, Russia's closest neighbors are beginning to become more actively interested in the issues of gas supplies and gas transit. This year the exception also did not. The Ukrainian authorities decided to make an offer to Russia and the European Union in terms of creating an international gas consortium. Readers who are used to following the world the newsrelated to the problems of deliveries of Russian hydrocarbons abroad, they will say: wait, is that really news, isn’t the same thing that the Russian side proposed to the Ukrainian side not so long ago? Indeed, it was. True, it was more than eight years ago ...
Then Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement that a commission would be created, the main occupation of which would be participation in the modernization of the Ukrainian gas transmission system. Such a document was signed by the leaders of two states: Vladimir Putin and Leonid Kuchma. At the same time, the Russian president said that in the near future (at the time of 2004), French and Italian businessmen representing Gaz de France and Eni are going to join the international consortium. This consortium had to solve several urgent issues at once: the issue of the so-called unauthorized gas extraction by Ukraine, as well as the stability of gas supplies to Europe at any time of the year, regardless of any apparent conditions. In other words, the agreement took into account literally everything, except for the fall of the meteorite to Earth and the change of power in Ukraine. And, as we all know, the meteorite, thank God, did not fall on our sinful planet, but already in January 2005, a man like Viktor Yushchenko came to power in Ukraine, which for Russian-Ukrainian agreements turned out to be about the same consequences , as the possible fall of a large meteorite ...
As a result, President Yushchenko sent all plans to create an international consortium in the most decisive manner into the trash can, saying that he sees no prospects for an independent Ukraine in it. According to him, Moscow’s “clawed feet” simply want to hog the entire Ukrainian gas transportation system in order to use it exclusively in their own interests without any benefit to official Kiev. And the consortium, thanks to the aspirations of the new Ukrainian leader, was never created then.
Well, well ... - they said in Moscow, - no, no, no. But after all, as in the same Moscow understood, if the situation is left as it was at that time with the transportation of gas to Europe, then no one can guarantee that Kyiv will not continue to “scheduledly” take gas from the pipeline. From the pipe that leads from the territory of Russia to the EU through, as it already happened, the territory of independent Ukraine, led by lovers of orange colors and shades. And the representatives of Gazprom and the Russian authorities had to go, as they say, in a different way. This other way is the development of ideas first, and then the phased implementation of such alternative gas pipelines as the North and South Streams. At the same time, the direct construction of the Nord Stream began in the same 2005, when the Ukrainian authorities rejected the creation of the same international consortium designed to develop the Ukrainian GTS.
And now, as they say, they came to their senses ... Just the other day, the Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov either found documents on the creation of a consortium that were crumpled in 2005, or “invented a bicycle” in the paper basket, but in one way or another offered Russia and the European Union to raise a question about consortium discussions on the Ukrainian gas transport system. Many looked at Mr. Azarov with obvious bewilderment: they say, Nikolai, they’ve already passed like that ... But one of the main figures of Ukrainian politics allowed the world community to recognize the importance of considering such an issue. The importance, according to Mykola Azarov, is that if Europeans are going to use exclusively the North and South streams without transit of Russian gas through the territory of Ukraine, then during severe frosts they may experience fuel problems. But if the Europeans in the future will buy gas from Russia, which goes through the Ukrainian territories, then these Europeans, according to the version of the same Mykola Azarov, no winter will be terrified. Why? And because Ukraine has large gas storage facilities, which will become a real panacea for the European consumer in the winter. In other words, Ukraine is going to fill its storage facilities with Russian gas, so that later it will be resold to Europe when the fuel is very tight there. In general, a large Ukrainian reserve - "UkrKubyshka."
It would be quite possible to consider the option if we forget about the fact that the yard is no longer 2005, but 2012, and about the fact that Mykola Azarov offers Europeans and Russians in the new consortium on 33%, respectively. If you are guided by rough mathematical approximations, then you might think that everything is fine: everything seems to be one-third ... But in fact, if the consortium is 100%, while Russia and the EU total 66%, then Kiev turns out to be 34% ... That is, at least a percentage, but more than all the others. A sort of equal partnership in the Azarov way ...
At the same time, the Ukrainian authorities apparently do not want to take into account the fact that gas is Russian, and the consumer is European, and that the role of Ukraine is the role of a respected intermediary, but no more. In this regard, the logic of Ukraine obtaining large preferences (in comparison with other parties) in the same international consortium is completely incomprehensible.
The question arises, why is it now that official Kiev suddenly decided to recall the already pretty forgotten initiative of the Russian authorities of the 2004 model of the year. The situation is quite simple: the official authorities have ceased to pretend that they do not notice the losses suffered by the treasury of Ukraine in connection with alternative ways of supplying Russian gas to Europe. In this case, as they say, better late than never. So, Mykola Azarov decided to raise the issue of the consortium. At the same time, he refers to some calculations, according to which the development of the Ukrainian GTS will cost “only something” in 4,5 billion dollars, but Russia can outnumber 15 billion in South Stream.
But even if we assume that in the Kremlin and in Gazprom, let's say, they will think about the proposal of the Ukrainian authorities, where are the guarantees that other people in Kiev will not come and say (as it was in 2005) that Russia will again trying to tidy up the Ukrainian gas transport cluster to the hands. Unfortunately, no one can give such guarantees in Ukraine today ... Even Azarov ...
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