ANKARA - Relations which had been disrupted between state-run oil company Botas and Russian Gazexport company because of dispute on price, were thawed after formation of agreement base and suspension of arbitration last week. Russian delegation started to discuss technical details with representatives of Botas on Tuesday.
Russian gas marketing company Gazexport claimed that price formation formula in Blue Stream Project was written wrongly and called on Botas to pay a higher price. The disagreement is expected to be overcome after talks between the two companies.
Gazexport, the marketing company of Russian gas production company Gazprom, wants prices of the natural gas it sells to Turkey, to increase or decrease by basing on the formula envisaging international oil prices.
Gazprom company stated that the formula in all other agreements was the same but that this was different, pointing out that this was a mistake in writing. Gazprom says it should be the same with the others.
The formula protects Russian gas company even if international prices decrease significantly.
In case the formula changes as wanted by Gazprom, Turkey should pay an additional bill that may rise to billions of U.S. dollars.
Last week an agreement was reached to suspend arbitration and to have changes to make an agreement on a price that would be determined by taking into consideration the average gas purchase price of the European countries.
(AY-AÖ) 26.08.2003