OREANDA-NEWS. July 16, 2012. Ukraine is interested in creating gas transport consortium. It was stated by the President in the course of the informal meeting with the Club of chief editors of CIS, Baltic states and Georgia. “Today we continue working on creation of gas transport consortium,” the President said.

Ukrainian side, the President noted, considers that our unique gas transport system must be preserved and its efficient work must be provided. “It is the interest of Russia, Ukraine and Europe,” the President expressed his confidence.

The President noted that it is necessary to modernize Ukrainian GTS, increase its capacity and volume of pumping. At the same time, he added that realization of this project needs significant investment. “The main goal is to preserve the system, modernize it, invest in it and provide stable work,” the President emphasized.

He also stressed that the process of creating gas transport consortium should be lawful and transparent.

Also, the President noted that such an important issue needs objective evaluation. He informed that in order to define objective price and technical condition of national GTS Ukraine has signed an agreement with western officials and now they conduct relevant audits. “These experts are working and we hope to find out the preliminary price in August. The market price of the system will be known in August,” the President said.

The President added that Ukraine is interested to have reliable and stable partners in this issue. “I am confident that tomorrow we will discuss that issue… The creation of gas transport consortium will definitely improve the relations between Ukraine and Russia in gas sphere,” the President said. (On July 12, the fifth meeting of Ukrainian-Russian interstate commission headed by Ukrainian and Russian Presidents will take place).