I’m sure you’ve read about Putin and/or Medvedev reacting with high dudgeon to Ukrainian failures to pay for gas in full and on time. Oh, the lectures they can give. The moral outrage! How dare they not pay what they owe! The nerve! The idea!
Keep that image in mind when you read this:
Poland and Russia have yet to sign a gas delivery deal for 2010 due to Gazprom owing Warsaw around 410 million dollars.
Poland still has not signed a deal on gas supplies with Russian energy giant Gazprom, which should have been agreed at the end of last year. Poland is delaying the signing because the Russian company owes it over one billion zloty (410 million dollars).
Gazprom’s debt of 350 million dollars results from paying lower tariffs for gas transit in Poland as required by the Energy Regulatory Office. Additional 60 million dollars debt results from not delivering gas to Poland by Gazprom’s middleman company RosUkrEnergo in 2008. Later, the Russian gas giant took over the company’s debt.
As for now, Gazprom is willing to sign a new agreement on condition that Poland will cancel a part of its debt. The Polish gas company EuRoPol Gaz, however, does not want to make concessions, claiming that it would violate Polish law.
Just another example of the for-thee-not-for-me Russian commercial mentality, as if we needed another. (The Producers episode in which Gazprom (OGZPY.PK) cut off gas imports from Turkmenistan, causing a pipeline blowup rather than meet its take-or-pay obligations is another great example.) Keep that in mind the next time you hear Putin or Sechin or Medvedev or anybody in the Russian government caterwauling about somebody being a deadbeat.
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