Gazprom Highlights Secretary General's Statement on Russia-Ukraine Gas Dispute

André Mernier, Secretary General of the Energy Charter Secretariat, issued the following statement, recalling the principles of the Energy Charter Treaty on uninterrupted transit of energy:

Present negotiations on the settlement of outstanding payment for Russian gas sold to Ukraine have not yet been resolved. The dispute relates to a supply contract and is a commercial matter. Although in these uncertain circumstances, it is important to recall the principle of uninterrupted transit which is a core element of the Energy Charter Treaty: Article 7(5) of the Treaty obliges its member countries to "...secure established flows of Energy Materials and Products to, from or between the Areas of other contracting Parties." A core element of this principle is to prevent non-transit related issues from having a negative impact on transit volumes.

In principle, in order to avoid the interruption of transit volumes it is important to ensure that gas volumes in transit and supply volumes, or domestic volumes within the transit country, can be and are handled separately. Where the design of the transportation system does not allow for the physical separation of the various gas streams, the establishment of a transparent volume allocation system is necessary to ensure that volumes nominated for transit can be traced through the system to ensure the delivery of unrestricted volumes to the respective customers downstream of the transit country.

In the case of a transit dispute, the Energy Charter Secretariat stands ready to support the work of an independent conciliator, as foreseen in Article 7 of the ECT, should the parties call for it.

You can find the original statement at:

http://www.encharter.org/index.php?id=21&id_article=165&L=0