Oleh Dubyna, board chairman of national joint stock company Naftogaz Ukrainy, intends to reach agreement on direct deliveries of Uzbek natural gas to Ukraine.

"It is planned that before the end of the year a joint delegation of the Fuel Ministry and Naftogaz will visit Tashkent to hold talks on direct deliveries of 7 billion cubic meters of gas. It would be an alternative to RosUkrEnergo deliveries," he explained.

Currently RosUkrEnergo is supplying to Ukraine 55 billion cubic meters of gas from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Russia’s monopoly Gazprom buys gas for RosUkrEnergo in those countries. In December, the monopoly managed to contract the whole volume of gas extracted by Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, but an agreement with Uzbekistan has not been signed so far.

On 4 December, Ukraine and Russia agreed the price of imported natural gas on the Russia - Ukraine border at US$179.5 per 1,000 cubic meters, which is 38.08% up on the 2007 gas price.