KIEV, June 30 – Energy Minister Yuriy Boyko will travel to Moscow Friday for a meeting with top Gazprom officials as the parties are due to discuss a potential merger with Naftogaz Ukrayiny, an official said Thursday.

Alexei Miller, the CEO of Gazprom, said the merger is the key condition for lowering prices for Russian natural gas for Ukrainian consumers.

“We can meet our friends half way with understanding that this will be a single company,” Miller said at a press conference. “Here is our vision: Naftogaz and Ukraine could solve many problems by accepting our proposal to merge Gazprom and Naftogaz.”

Ukraine has been refusing to merge the two companies for more than 12 months, insisting that the merger would reduce Ukraine’s economic and political independence.

This will be the second meeting between Boyko and Miller this week, suggesting the parties have intensified their contacts over the past several days.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych for informal talks in Crimea during the weekend, but no details of the talks had been reported.

Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is tried in Kiev for alleged abuse of power while negotiating a 10-year natural gas deal with Russia in January 2009, said Friday Ukraine may be preparing to surrender its gas pipelines to Gazprom.

“Collusion is underway behind the back of Ukraine, behind the back of the Ukrainian people, to surrender the gas pipelines,” Tymoshenko said.

Ukraine has been seeking over the past 12 months to change the gas agreement signed in January 2009 in order to lower gas prices, but Russia has refused.

Ukraine’s gas pipelines move up to 110 billion cubic meters of Russian gas annually, or 80% of Russia’s Europe-bound gas shipments.

Ukraine wants to secure lower natural gas prices now because growing prices of crude oil may push gas price to $500 per 1,000 cu m that will make the operations of Ukrainian fertilizer producers unprofitable. (sb/ez)