Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has said that the
enlargement of the Ukrainian gas transit system does not require
significant investment and is economically profitable to the whole
European gas network.
She made the comment while addressing an
international investment conference on the modernization of Ukraine's
gas transit system in Brussels on Monday, Interfax-Ukraine reports.
"The enlargement of the
Ukrainian gas transportation system, with its huge technical potential
and developed infrastructure, does not require considerable investment
and is economically profitable for the whole gas network of Europe,"
Tymoshenko said.
She said that a joint team of independent
European and Ukrainian experts had drawn this conclusion after
conducting a study of the system in 2002-2006. They concluded that the
technical state of the Ukrainian gas transit system is satisfactory,
and that it can pump 140 billion cubic meters of gas every year.
Tymoshenko
said that bringing the use of the Torzhok-Dolyna gas pipeline to the
level of its rated capacity, as well as the construction of the
Novopskovsk-Uzhgorodo gas pipeline worth $5.5 billion, could increase
the system's capacity at its exit point by 60 billion cubic meters per
year.
"With the goal of conducting work on the modernization and
extension of the gas transit system, the European Union should provide
firm guarantees in terms of the amount of gas transited in the long
term," she said.
