Bloomberg: EU wants to transport Azerbaijani gas through Ukraine

The European Union (EU) wants to transport Azerbaijani gas via Ukraine through Russian gas pipelines.

European officials are in talks to keep gas flowing through a key Russia-Ukraine pipeline, as they race to prevent Moscow’s war further damaging the continent’s energy supplies.

However, in a conversation with Bloomberg, the chief executive officer of the Ukrainian state-run energy company Naftogaz, Oleksiy Chernyshov, ruled out his country's participation in any EU projects to extend transit that would involve contacts with Russia's Gazprom.

“There are two factors we should always remember. One is that Ukraine has incredible infrastructure of transit and storage gas, which should be used, and Ukraine is predisposed to use this infrastructure because it brings a lot of advantages,” he added.

He ruled out any plan that involved working with Russia’s Gazprom PJSC, and said bringing gas from Azerbaijan “might have some future.”

One option that’s been discussed is for European companies to buy and inject gas from Azerbaijan into Russian pipelines heading to Europe, according to some of the people. Such an arrangement would allow Europe to avoid the embarrassment of buying Russian gas at a time when it’s trying to crimp Moscow’s revenues.

The idea is gaining momentum as it becomes clear that Ukraine would be in favour.