MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th November, 2019) Yuriy Vitrenko, executive director of Naftogaz of Ukraine, said on Monday that the company's new lawsuit against Russia's Gazprom, which had been filed with the Stockholm arbitration last week, required a revision of the transit tariff.
On Saturday, Vitrenko said that the company had sent a statement of defense and counterclaims to Gazprom in the amount of $12 billion.
"Now regarding our claims in the new arbitration. First and foremost, we demand a review of the transit tariff," Vitrenko said on Facebook.
Naftogaz will demand a revision of the transit tariff from March 13, 2018, when the company sent to Gazprom a request to revise the tariff through January 1, 2020, when the current contract expires.
In addition, Vitrenko explained that the amount of the claim was calculated taking into account the so-called optimization ratio when determining the "asset base."
"If we did not apply this ratio, but simply cover all our expenses, the amount of compensation would be $1.5 billion more," he said.
The executive director of Naftogaz added that the company did not have sufficient reasons to expect the use of the Ukrainian gas transportation system for transit after the contract expires on January 1, 2020.
"Accordingly, we are obligated to calculate depreciation and amortization expenses in accordance with the expectations of the termination of transit. If we take it simple, we should amortize in just two years an asset that could serve 30 years, since then it will not be used," he explained.
In late February 2018, the Stockholm arbitration partially satisfied Naftogaz claims over Gazprom's alleged failure to supply agreed volumes of gas for transit and ordered Gazprom to pay $4.63 billion to the Ukrainian company. However, taking into account the amount of money previously awarded to Gazprom in relation with the gas supply contract, the mutual offset of liabilities resulted in Gazprom's obligation to pay $2.56 billion.
Ukraine has since been seeking to claim the compensation via Gazprom's asset freezes across Europe.
