December 16, 2006	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 24, 1427

MOSCOW, Dec 15: Russia's state gas monopoly Gazprom said on Friday it might increase the volume of the gas it sends through Ukraine to European markets.

Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller discussed the matter with Ukraine's Energy Minister Yuri Boyko at a meeting at Gazprom's Moscow headquarters.

“The two sides raised the possibility of an increase in 2007 in the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine towards western Europe,” Gazprom said in a statement.

The statement came as Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Friday to discuss Moscow's demand for a fourfold price increase for Belarus' gas imports.The Kremlin talks took place a fortnight before the January 1 deadline set by Gazprom for Belarus to start paying the huge price increase, or grant a major stake in Belarussian pipeline company Beltransgaz.

Aboput 80 per cent of Russian gas destined for Europe passes through Ukraine, and some 20 per cent via Belarus.

Gazprom had previously said it wanted to divert a lot of its European gas exports away from Ukraine by building a pipeline via the Baltic sea.

In January, Russia briefly cut off gas supplies to Ukraine in a price dispute that disrupted gas supplies around Europe.

Russia, an increasingly important energy supplier for Europe, has said that a series of gas price hikes introduced for former Soviet republics are part of a drive to raise prices to world market levels.

But critics have said the hikes are aimed at pressuring ex-Soviet states into taking a more pro-Moscow line, as well as securing control over key pipeline networks. —AFP