UA-RU gas debates continue; Ferrexpo 2011 output; MoF gets rights for external borrowings; FX, liquidity news

In an extension of the previous day\'s public debate between Ukraine Energy Minister Yuriy Boyko and Gazprom Chairman Alexey Miller on what volume of natural gas the former would need from the latter this year, there was again a public spat between second-ranking officials of the two sides, which are mired down in negotiations. An unnamed official of state-owned Naftogaz of Ukraine stated in an official corporate press release that Ukraine\'s side had an eligible right to import 27bcm. Naftogaz even went further and published a copy of the letter of 20 May, 2011 to Gazprom Chairman Miller, which was apparently a step taken to initiate the process of renegotiating down the volume of imported natural gas for 2012. In return, Gazprom official Sergey Kupriyanov told the media yesterday that Ukraine had failed to show its wiliness to renegotiate down the 2012 volume of imports, effectively saying that Ukraine had wasted its time in such a negotiation. All in all, the sides have apparently been fanning debate into a near-public battle that is taking place on the eve of the widely publicised, face-to-face meeting next week in Moscow, in the next round of talks.
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