Ukraine is talking to Germany, Europe’s largest gas consumer, about joining an international management consortium to run Ukraine’s Gas Transportation System,

Ukraine is talking to Germany, Europe’s largest gas consumer, about joining an international management consortium to run Ukraine’s Gas Transportation System, President Poroshenko says on his YouTube channel. By involving Germany in managing Ukraine’s massive east-west pipeline, Ukraine hopes to have a powerful advocate to maintain gas flows from Russia. Poroshenko says Ukraine earns $3 billion in gas transmission fees, the equivalent of the entire defense budget. Concorde Capital’s Alexander Paraschiy writes: “The construction of Nord Steam-2 indeed adds risks that Ukraine’s gas transit system connecting Russia and EU countries will become virtually obsolete by the early 2020s. The risk is also aggravated by the fact that the current gas transit contract between the Ukrainian and Russian gas monopolies concludes in late 2019.”