Russia grabs half of Firtash's business for gas supply from Central Asia in 2003

18:32, 16.02.2017 1 min read

Russia in 2003 grabbed half of Dmytro Firtash's business for the supply of gas from Central Asia, the businessman has said in an interview with Bloomberg.

"I didn't enter their business. They entered my business. All that I earned myself, I was supposed to share with Gazprom," Firtash said.

Bloomberg stated, with reference to Firtash, until 2003 he independently controlled the supplies from Central Asia of about 68 billion cubic meters of gas per year (14-17 billion cubic meters of this volume were exported to Europe, the rest was sold in Ukraine).

Negotiations between Firtash and Russians have lasted for about a year, they resulted in the creation of a new company, RosUkrEnergo, with the distribution of shares.

As reported, RosUkrEnergo trader was established by Gazprom and Centragas Holding AG on a parity basis in summer 2004. RosUkrEnergo in 2006-2008 was the monopoly supplier of natural gas to Ukraine. Centragas Holding AG belongs to Ukrainian businessmen Dmytro Firtash (90%) and Ivan Fursin (10%). In 2014 Gazprom and Centragas decided to liquidate RosUkrEnergo.