BLBG:Gazprom Seeks Ruling Against Lithuania on Gas Utility
OAO Gazprom filed a request for arbitration after Lithuania sought to oust managers representing the Russian gas export monopoly at the Lietuvos Dujos AB gas utility.
Gazprom said the move violated its rights as a shareholder in the Lithuanian utility, the Russian company said today in a statement.
The Lithuanian government seeks to oust Lietuvos Dujos management, alleging it ignored the interests of Lithuania and didn’t negotiate a fair gas price for Russian supplies . The Baltic state asked the European Commission on Jan. 25 to investigate possible market abuse by Gazprom after the company said Lithuania, unlike neighboring Latvia and Estonia, won’t receive gas-price cuts because the country plans to begin unbundling ownership of its gas industry.
Lithuania hasn’t received any documents from arbitration yet, the Vilnius-based Energy Ministry said in e-mailed responses to Bloomberg inquiry. The ministry said this may be a second Gazprom complaint over an investigation at Lietuvos Dujos (LDJ1L), which got rejected by arbitration on this issue once.
Lithuania pays about $100 more than Germany for 1,000 cubic meters of Russian natural gas, the government has previously said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Anna Shiryaevskaya in Moscow at ashiryaevska@bloomberg.net Milda Seputyte in Vilnius at mseputyte@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Torrey Clark at tclark8@bloomberg.net
