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At their meeting in the Crimea on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Leonid Kuchma discussed the creation of an international gas transportation consortium, said Viktor Khristenko, Russian Minister of Industry and Energy.
He said the two leaders had discussed this issue at all their meetings. According to Mr. Khristenko, issues of cooperation in the gas sphere were settled in the existing agreement, and they were being implemented. “In this respect, we have no questions for each other,” he noted.
Mr. Khristenko believes the decision on funding and the allocation of funds for the Bogorodchany-Uzhgorod gas transportation consortium, scheduled for August 31, should be done 1-1.5 months earlier. He said this would allow for a more effective use of Ukraine’s gas transportation capacity.
Russia and Ukraine are preparing a draft of the Russian-Ukrainian agreement on guaranteeing gas supplies to be transported through the Bogorodchany-Uzhgorod gas pipeline. The construction of this pipeline, 300km long and estimated at about $300m, is part of an investment stage of the project, and it will be a branch of the Novopskov-Uzhgorod gas pipeline, which is 1,500km long and has a capacity of 20bn to 30bn cubic meters of gas a year.
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RUSSIA IN FACTS
