PRESS: Gazprom wants lower prices for pipes for Nord Stream-2

MOSCOW, Dec 21 (PRIME) -- Russian gas giant Gazprom has found prices for large-diameter pipes used to construct the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline to be too high and cancelled contracts with pipe producers due to “cessation of interest,” business dailies Kommersant and Vedomosti report on Thursday.

Kommersant reported that Gazprom cancelled purchases of the remaining amount of pipes under a 56.8 billion ruble tender held in July 2016.

Pipe producers received notifications of contracts termination on Wednesday, two executives of Gazprom’s contractors told Vedomosti. Gazprom’s new price policy to buy large-diameter pipes was mentioned as the reason.

Sources with Kommersant said that Gazprom has already bought most pipes and is now discussing the price of the remaining amount and the 2018 price policy.

“An expectation that prices for pipes will not change or will fall despite a rise in oil and steel prices contradicts global trends and is fundamentally groundless,” Kirill Chuiko, an analyst at BCS, said.

A spokesperson for the Foundation for Development of Tube Industry said that “there is an active process of negotiations to develop a new approach to price formation,” and that “the decision should be found in the nearest future.”

(58.7170 rubles – U.S. $1)

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