Ukraine should attract a European company to manage its gas transport system (GTS) to retain its status of a transit country, Head of national joint-stock company Naftogaz Ukrainy Andriy Kobolev has said.

"The ultimate goal of the process [the creation of a separate operator] is the attraction of a European company… They would have their interest. Actually we want to share a part of own business and they would help us to guarantee that transit across the Ukrainian territory would remain after 2019," he said on Channel 5 TV late on Wednesday.

Kobolev said that at present only three companies showed their interest to manage the Ukrainian GTS. They are holding negotiations.

Kobolev recalled that if Russia's Gazprom implements projects to build two lines of Turkish Stream and Nord Stream 2 Russia could stop gas transit via the Ukrainian GTS.

"In my opinion, it would be hard to retain transit across the territory of Ukraine without the attraction of a European company to the Ukrainian transit area, as on the other hand, there is a powerful opponent that actually makes an interesting proposal to Europeans saying: let us build another pipeline using own money," he said.

Kobolev said that refusal from Russian gas transit via the Ukrainian GTS would result in the increase in the cost of transit for Europe as there would not be additional competition.

"The second step would be difficult for Europeans. If this happens and the Ukrainian GTS is no transit anymore, this gas [pumped bypassing Ukraine] would turn from cheap gas into expensive one. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and unfortunately no everyone understands this," he said.