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Naftogaz demands $12.3bln from Gazprom in new claims

The bulk worth $11.8 billion was an amount of compensation Gazprom should pay for its refusal to reconsider the tariff from March 13, 2018 until December 31, 2019

KIEV, November 5. /TASS/. Ukraine’s Naftogaz filed a request with the Stockholm arbitration court last week within its lawsuit against Gazprom that the Russian gas company should be ordered to pay a total of $12.248 billion as compensation, Naftogaz Executive Director Yuri Vitrenko said on Monday.

The bulk worth $11.8 billion was an amount of compensation Gazprom should pay for its refusal to reconsider the tariff from March 13, 2018 until December 31, 2019. The rest money includes other claims.

"The amount of $213 million (plus interest) is compensation for Gazprom’s failure to supply gas under the gas supply contract from March 2018 to September 2019 (we can add the following months later). Gazprom was committed to supply us with 4 billion cubic meters of gas in 2018 and 5 billion cubic meters of gas in 2019, but Gazprom failed to meet the commitment. Respectively, we claim compensation for the periods when we had to buy more expensive gas on the European market (which is to compensate for a margin between the contract price and the actual purchase price)," Vitrenko wrote.

Gas transit legal dispute

Gazprom and Naftogaz of Ukraine plunged into a litigation over gas supplies and transit contracts with the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce back in 2014.

In December 2017 and February 2018, the Stockholm Arbitration Court ruled that the Russian company should pay $2.56 bln to the Ukrainian company. Gazprom appealed against these decisions. The Svea County Court of Appeal in Sweden set up a Gazprom appeal hearing in October 2019.

The Svea Court of Appeal (Sweden) has considered the appeal of Gazprom this month and is expected to issue a verdict on it Gazprom’s appeal against a decision by the Stockholm Arbitration Court on November 27.

In March 2018, Gazprom notified Naftogaz of the need to restore the balance of interests of the parties to the agreements, which had previously been violated by the decisions of the Stockholm arbitration, and proposed holding negotiations on this issue.

On April 20, 2018, after the talks failed, Gazprom sent a request to the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce to amend or terminate the contracts with Naftogaz for the supply and transit of gas through Ukraine in order to restore the balance of contract obligations.

In response, Naftogaz filed counterclaims under the contracts on May 22, 2018.

The consideration of this case was combined with Naftogaz’ lawsuit to review the gas transit tariff, the Ukrainian company had filed in July 2018. Naftogaz wants to revise the tariff from March 18, 2018 and to recover $11.58 bln from Gazprom for the period from March 18, 2018 until the expiration of the transit contract.