The Ukrainian government tells Chinese and South Korean investors are interested in the realization of a fundamental project for Kyiv energy security. On November 2012 a scandal between Ukraine and Spanish energy company Natural Gas Fenosa halted the LNG terminal's realization
Money from China and South Korea to overcome a scandal with Spain about a fundamental project for Ukraine's energy security.
On Wednesday 1/16, Ukrainian Minister of Coal and Energy Eduard Stavytsky told Ukrinform press agency than investors from China and South Korea are interested in Odessa LNG terminal's realization.
The project has been halted after Former Ukrainian Ministry of Coal and Energy Yuri Boyko signed an agreement with a non-authorized person from Spanish energy company Natural Gas Fenosa.
The scandal caused the halt of the LNG terminal's realization, which is planed to import 10 bcd of liquefied gas per year from Qatar, Azerbaijan, Algeria and Libya and decrease Ukraine's dependence on Russia, whose gas supplies cover the 90% of Ukraine's total energy need.
The LNG terminal's realization in Odessa is one of the solutions Ukraine conceived to balance the lack of gas flow from Russia. In order to react to Moscow's high tariffs, Ukraine reduced gas import form Russia to 27 bcd of gas per year.
Moreover, former Minister Boyko - who has been promoted as the First Deputy PM - raised the use of coal and oil, and signed a three months agreement with German energy company RWE in order to import 57 mcm of Russian natural gas from Germany.
The import of Russian natural gas from Germany has been possible by the reverse use of the pipelines in Poland and Hungary. These countries are no more Russian gas transit states after Russia realized in the Baltic Sea seabed the Nordstream: a pipeline planed to divide the EU and increase Europe's dependence on Russia carrying 55 bcd of gas per year.
Ukraine were a Russian gas transit state to Europe when former PM Yulia Tymoshenko - the Leader of the non violent and democratic ukrainian Orange Revolution in 2004 - accepted in 2009 high tariffs, in order to guarantee Russian gas supplies to the EU.
Moscow imposed high tariffs to Kyiv in order to influence Ukraine's internal politics. Once loosed the power, Tymoshenko - after a non regular process - has been jailed for having betrayed Ukrainian national interest.
Tymoshenko affair provoked a political crisis between the EU and Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych: the man who's suspected for having planed the political process on the orange Leader.
Yanukovych also had to face the higher tariffs for natural gas supplies that Russia still imposed to Ukraine, without the help by Brussels nor the Western world community.
Matteo Cazzulani
