Energy and Environment Protection Minister of Ukraine Oleksiy Orzhel has expressed the hope that the parities will proceed from technical consultations to agreeing the natural gas transportation and supply contract.

"The parties are now holding technical consultations. In the near future, the issue will really move to certain significant elements of agreeing on a transportation contract and terms of delivery or compensation for those positions and financial decisions on arbitration awards," he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Monday.

"Now, active work is going in the issue of agreeing two contracts in order to make concrete decisions on the volume and terms of compensation," the minister added.

According to him, the process is quite active, and although the negotiations are not easy, there are already "certain constructive" behavior.

As reported, following a meeting of the Ukrainian and Russian ministers in Vienna on November 28, technical consultations began on an interconnection agreement between the operator of the Ukrainian and Russian gas transmission systems.