Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Nov. 10
By Huseyn Hasanov – Trend:
The Russian company Gazprom and Turkmenistan’s Turkmengas State Concern have suspended arbitration dispute over gas supply due to the progress in peaceful settlement of the issue, Turkmenistan’s Oil and Gas Complex said citing a memorandum on the release of Gazprom Eurobonds.
Gazprom has been since 2008 trying to have the procurement price of the Turkmen gas revised. It bought 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year from Turkmenistan according to the agreement signed in 2010.
Gazprom filed a suit against Turkmengas in the Stockholm arbitration court in 2015 demanding retroactive payments worth $5 billion for the Turkmen gas supply in 2010-2015.
In 2015, the Russian company decided to reduce the volume of purchases to 4 billion cubic meters.
In the spring of 2015, Turkmenistan’s Ministry of Oil and Gas said that Gazprom does not fully pay for the supplies starting from early 2015 and called the Russian company "an insolvent partner."
Gazprom halted procurement of the Turkmen gas in January 2016.
Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and the Russian President Vladimir Putin had a meeting last week.
“Despite the difficulties in the economic sphere, our turnover is growing in the ruble equivalent," Putin said in the beginning of the meeting.
But there was no report about the solution of the gas dispute then.