{"id":5772,"date":"2015-02-16T07:21:57","date_gmt":"2015-02-16T12:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=5772"},"modified":"2015-02-16T07:21:57","modified_gmt":"2015-02-16T12:21:57","slug":"as-imf-extends-17-5-billion-credit-to-kiev-gazprom-demands-debt-repayment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=5772","title":{"rendered":"As IMF Extends $17.5 Billion Credit To Kiev, Gazprom Demands Debt Repayment"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/oilprice.com\/Energy\/Natural-Gas\/As-IMF-Extends-17.5-Billion-Credit-To-Kiev-Gazprom-Demands-Debt-Repayment.html\" target=\"_blank\">As IMF Extends $17.5 Billion Credit To Kiev, Gazprom Demands Debt Repayment<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>No sooner had the International Monetary Fund (IMF) extended $17.5 billion over four years in new credit to Ukraine, Russia\u2019s private gas giant Gazprom was claiming $2.4 billion of it to settle Kiev\u2019s gas debt.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not exactly what the IMF had in mind. The international lender\u2019s mission chief for Ukraine, Nikolay Gueorguiev,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.upi.com\/Business_News\/Energy-Resources\/2015\/02\/12\/Gazprom-seeks-Ukrainian-gas-payments\/4301423743056\/\">issued a statement<\/a>\u00a0on Feb. 13 saying the credit was meant to address \u201cimmediate macroeconomic stabilization as well as broad and deep structural reforms to provide the basis for strong and sustainable economic growth over the medium term.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, Gazprom\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/tass.ru\/en\/economy\/777120\">sent a letter<\/a>\u00a0to its Ukrainian counterpart, state-owned Naftogaz, seeking a payment of more than $2.4 billion, to cover $2.2 billion in debt, plus a penalty fee of about $200 million. The debt, which Kiev doesn\u2019t acknowledge, will be the subject of hearings at the Stockholm Arbitration Institute in early 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Discussing Gazprom\u2019s demand on the Russian television station LifeNew, Kremlin Energy Minister Alexander Novak dismissed Ukraine\u2019s stand on the status of the debt, saying, \u201cGazprom has every right to claim the funds\u201d because the gas deliveries to Naftogaz are listed on invoices according to an active contract between the two gas companies.<\/p>\n<p>So far, Naftogaz has been paying the $2 billion debt in installments. Now that Ukraine has received the IMF loan, Gazprom wants the entire debt paid now.<\/p>\n<p>Ever since the autumn of 2013, when many Ukrainians were demanding closer ties with the European Union at the expense of Russia, its gross domestic product (GDP)\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.upi.com\/Business_News\/Energy-Resources\/2015\/02\/12\/Gazprom-seeks-Ukrainian-gas-payments\/4301423743056\/\">has shrunk\u00a0<\/a>by about 7 percent, the IMF says. In February 2014, faced with a popular uprising, the country\u2019s president, Viktor Yanukovich, fled to Russia, which responded by annexing Ukraine\u2019s Crimean peninsula.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As IMF Extends $17.5 Billion Credit To Kiev, Gazprom Demands Debt Repayment No sooner had the International Monetary Fund (IMF) extended $17.5 billion over four years in new credit to Ukraine, Russia\u2019s private gas giant Gazprom was claiming $2.4 billion of it to settle Kiev\u2019s gas debt. That\u2019s not exactly what the IMF had in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,5],"tags":[195,352,418,434,1610,2430,694,821],"class_list":["post-5772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-geopolitics","tag-debt","tag-gazprom","tag-imf","tag-international-monetary-fund","tag-kiev","tag-naftogaz","tag-russia","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5773,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5772\/revisions\/5773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}