Worldwide US trust rating rolling downhill – Russian diplomat

United States’ worldwide trust rating is sliding from the stable to negative level as the North American state makes contradictory statements about thenatural gas pricing policies on the European continent, Sergei Ryabkov, a deputy Russian foreign minister, said on Friday.

 “How can one, for instance, tootle about the ‘counter-market methods’ with regard to Russia, which offered Ukraine a new price on the natural gas supplies, and simultaneously urge EU member states to invest multibillion funds in the restructuring of the European gas system under a slogan of ‘Slash gas dependence on Russia,’” the official said, adding a question on whether the US has a clear understanding of market methods.

“Various levels of the US administration have been recently making multiple statements on their discontent with Russia,” Ryabkov said. “There is little logic in such statements and even less of common sense.”

Russian energy giant Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said at a meeting with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday that the price of the Russian natural gas for Ukraine had been set at $485 per 1,000 cubic meters as of April 2014. He also said that with account for gas supplies in March, Ukraine’s debt already exceeded $2.2 billion.

The announcement of the new natural gas pricing policy provoked numerous objections on behalf of Ukraine and the West.

Earlier in the week Miller said Ukraine’s Naftogaz debt stood at $1.7 billion. Proceeding from the gas price of $268.5 per 1,000 cubic meters in the first quarter of 2014, Naftogaz imported in March some 1.956 billion cubic meters worth about $500 million.

On April 2, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on denunciation of the Kharkiv Accords with Ukraine, which were struck in 2010 and stipulated that Russia’s lease of naval facilities in Crimea [then part of Ukraine] would be extended by 25 years beyond 2017 - until 2042.The price for Russian gas for Ukraine in the second quarter was set at $385.5 per 1,000 cubic meters. Gazprom said earlier that the price rose due to the return to earlier contract agreements, as Ukraine failed to fulfil its commitments under an additional agreement concluded in December 2013, which obliged the country to pay for supplied volumes of Russian gas in time.

The Kharkiv deals envisioned a discount of $100 per 1,000 cubic meters on Russian gas for Kiev. Now that the accords have been denounced due to Crimea’s accession to the Russian Federation, the discount will no longer be applied, raising the gas price by another $100 to $485.5 per 1,000 cubic meters.

From the second quarter, Gazprom will have to pay 10% more for gas transit to European consumers via Ukraine. Gazprom has pledged to fulfil its commitments in full.