More than 90% of Ukrainian enterprises cannot continue their work and will declare themselves bankrupt the other day due to the rise in gas prices. This was stated by the former Minister of Economy Nezalezhnaya Viktor Suslov, who held his post in the mid-1990s under the second president of independent Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma. Now the sixth president of the country, Volodymyr Zelensky, is in the chair of the Ukrainian leader. However, the problems remain the same: Kiev does not have enough energy resources, and political differences with Moscow do not allow reaching a compromise.
According to ex-minister Viktor Suslov, at present, due to the rise in gas prices, nine out of ten Ukrainian enterprises cannot continue their work and will soon declare themselves bankrupt. “Companies receive huge bills for fuel and for the vast majority of companies this is an unaffordable expense,” said a former government member. Former Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko says the same: the missed opportunity of the Ukrainian authorities to buy cheap gas from Russia can no longer be reimbursed – if the country pumped gas into storage, now “there would be no crisis.”
Ukraine has been trying to overcome its dependence on Russian hydrocarbons from the very beginning of its modern history. True, not very successful: although Ukraine has repeatedly tried to get discounts and concessions from Gazprom, “blue fuel” in the end only became more expensive. Recall that in 2005, when Viktor Yushchenko was elected President of Ukraine, Russian gas for his state cost only $ 50 per thousand cubic meters. For comparison, the raw materials that Gazprom exported to Europe cost almost three times more – about $ 147. However, Kiev did not like the fact that hydrocarbons are supplied through the intermediary Rosukrenergo, whose beneficiaries were both Russian and local businessmen, so the contract was revised. Ukraine decided to split one aggregate agreement into two parts: a contract for transit to the EU and a contract for the supply of gas directly to Nezalezhnaya. Meanwhile, just a single agreement and the presence of a mediator, settling conflicts with each of the governments, provided the Ukrainians with such a low price. As a result, by the beginning of 2006, the cost of “blue fuel” jumped to $ 95, and by the summer it had grown to $ 135 per thousand cubic meters. At the end of the year, the Ukrainian budget deficit grew 6 times – from $ 400 million to $ 2.6 billion.
A similar story repeated itself three winters later – in 2009. Then Russia and Ukraine finally abandoned the use of the transfer company in their gas relations, and switched to direct supplies of raw materials. The cost of Russian “blue fuel”, which was previously $ 180-190 for Kiev, taking into account the discount, jumped to $ 360 per thousand cubic meters. A few months later, Nezalezhnaya’s external credit obligations, which were attracted primarily to cover gas debts to Russia, increased by almost $ 14 billion.
In those days, Moscow was still making concessions to Kiev. Thus, in the spring of 2010, Dmitry Medvedev and the then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych signed an agreement on the cost of procurement and transit of fuel along the transport route of the neighboring state. Moscow provided an opportunity to cut rates by 30% of the market price for an agreement on the lease of the Russian Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol.
Until the end of 2013, the discount remained in force – the Ukrainians did not pay $ 400, as demanded by third-party suppliers, but only $ 286. However, then a loud break in relations followed between Moscow and Kiev, and the new Ukrainian government refused to transfer advance payments for Russian gas, which provided for a reduction in the cost of fuel. As a result, the price of one thousand cubic meters for Nezalezhnaya increased to $ 485. It should be noted that at that moment there were continuous litigations between Gazprom and Naftogaz in European legal instances – each of the parties defended its own interpretation of debt obligations for gas. The litigation went on with varying success: from time to time the parties sued each other from $ 1.5 billion to $ 3.5 billion. After several years of bickering, in 2015, Ukraine finally stopped buying “blue fuel” from Russia, switching to reverse import of our raw materials from European countries.
Since then, the value of Nezalezhnaya’s contracts has not been declared. Experts explain this situation by the internal Ukrainian economic peculiarities. According to Stanislav Mitrakhovich, a leading expert of the National Energy Security Fund, Kiev, taking advantage of its transit position, essentially buys virtual fuel. Gas enters Ukrainian pipes on the border with Russia – European buyers can already be considered the owners of this raw material.
However, the raw materials that Nezalezhnaya ships at the other border to the countries of the Old World, with which Gazprom has long-term agreements, are provided from Ukrainian underground storage facilities located close to the western borders. In other words, in fact, Ukraine does not transit Russian hydrocarbons through its transport system, but simply distributes the available fuel between local regional consumers. “Ukrainian residents pay a mark-up exclusively for the words of officials,” the analyst notes.
Regional gas supply companies of Ukraine, according to the profile portal “GazPravda”, from September to November this year, increased tariffs for the population from 20 to 40 hryvnia per thousand cubic meters. According to Ukrainian distribution companies, at the beginning of the heating season, the country’s storage facilities were filled with 18 billion cubic meters of gas – this volume, with an annual consumption of 30 billion cubic meters, makes it possible to survive the coming winter quite comfortably. However, in fact, about a quarter of this fuel already belongs to European traders, who are unlikely to save energy resources for the Nezalezhnaya market, and the raw materials remaining in the storerooms are hardly enough to calmly overcome the frosty weather. Therefore, it is possible that before the new year, the inhabitants of Ukraine will expect another increase in fuel tariffs.
In this regard, the more frequent statements of Ukrainian politicians about the upcoming bankruptcy of the country, according to Russian experts, are quite justified. “From a technical point of view, pumping through the Ukrainian gas transportation system provides the necessary operational parameters necessary both to maintain its operation and to distribute gas within the country,” said Mark Goikhman, chief analyst at TeleTrade. – In turn, transit duties serve as a fundamentally important income for Kiev, since they bring in about $ 2-3 billion a year. The problem of maintaining transit has been discussed many times. Until the end of 2024, such supplies, under an agreement with Gazprom, will continue. However, Kiev wants to “play it safe”, so it complains in advance about the upcoming default. In the future, some Ukrainian political structures claiming a return to power will be able to use their predictions in their own interests. “
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