BRUSSELS, June 11. /ITAR-TASS/. Gazprom did not receive a payment for gas from the Ukrainian side on June 10, and Russia is ready to wait for Ukraine to settle it to June 16, Russia’s Minister of Energy Alexander Novak told reporters on Wednesday.

Russia has postponed introduction of a prepayment for Ukraine to 10:00 Moscow time on June 10, Gazprom’s CEO Aleksei Miller said following his meeting with the EU Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger.

“Bilateral consultations between the European Commission and the Russian delegation have finished in Brussels,” he said. “The Russian side has made a step forward to continue constructive negotiations. We shall not introduce the prepayment regime till 10 a.m. tomorrow, we have postponed it to 10 a.m. next Monday (June 16).

 

Gas payment delay

Ukraine is not ready to pay for natural gas delivered by Russia until a new gas price deal is reached, Ukrainian parliament-appointed Energy and Coal Minister Yuriy Prodan said.

“No, we are generally not ready,” Prodan said in response to a journalists’ question about Ukraine’s preparedness to make the next payment for Russia’s natural gas.

Prodan arrived in Brussels on Wednesday for the fifth round of gas talks resuming between Russia and Ukraine with the EU’s mediation on the price of Russia’s natural gas for its western neighbor, the repayment of Ukraine’s gas debt to Gazprom and the cost of gas transit to Europe across the Ukrainian territory.

Prodan said Ukraine would discuss payments only after reaching an agreement on the price of Russian natural gas as part of a package deal.

“As soon as an agreement on the gas price is reached, we’ll present an explicit schedule of payments,” Prodan said.

The undisputed part of Ukraine’s debt for November-December 2013 stands at $1.451 billion. Ukraine’s debts for gas supplies in April and May 2014, which are also the subject of negotiations in the three-party Russia-Ukraine-EU format, stand at about $3 billion. Gazprom so far expects to receive $500 million from this amount.