MOSCOW, December 9 (Sputnik) – Russian energy giant Gazprom has started prepaid gas deliveries to Ukraine Tuesday, a spokesman for the company said.
“From 10:00 a.m. Moscow time [7:00 a.m. GMT] Gazprom started delivering gas to Ukraine,” spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said.
Ukraine’s national oil and gas company Naftogaz announced the transfer of $378 million to Russia's Gazprom for the delivery of 1 billion cubic meters of gas on Friday. On Monday, Gazprom confirmed that it had received the funds.
Moscow switched Ukraine to a prepayment system for gas deliveries in June over Kiev’s gas debt, which at the time was in excess of $5 billion. Since June, Kiev has been relying on its own reserves and reverse flow deliveries of gas from several European countries.
The two sides agreed on a "winter package" deal for gas deliveries in October, securing Russian gas deliveries to Ukraine until March 2015. According to the agreement, Kiev is to pay $3.1 billion of its gas debt to Russia by the end of 2014. In November, Ukrainian state energy company Naftogaz paid off $1.45 billion of its debt to Gazprom.
