Ukraine has signaled it will be content with a Russian natural gas price of $160 per 1,000 cubic meters, a top manager of Russian energy giant Gazprom said on Friday.

Dutch company Nederlandse Gasunie NV will be included in a Baltic Sea pipeline designed to bypass several European countries and ship Russian gas directly to Germany, according to an agreement signed by Russia and Netherlands on Tuesday.

Ukraine has paid for Russian natural gas supplies in 2007 in full, RosUkrEnergo, the sole gas supplier to the former Soviet republic, said in a statement on Wednesday.

The 2008 price of Russian natural gas for Belarus could be around $125 per 1,000 cubic meters, 25% more than the current rate, a deputy Russian industry and energy minister said on Friday.

Russian gas supplies to Greece, halted following a Monday explosion at a pipeline in Bulgaria, have been resumed, a top executive of the Bulgargaz company said Thursday.

Russian gas supplies to Greece have been brought to a halt following a blast on a section of gas pipeline in Bulgaria, the Greek media reported Monday. The blast occurred Monday morning due to a gas leak, the Greek media said. No casualties have so far been reported.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday the energy markets of Black Sea littoral states should be stabilized by long-term contracts.

The negotiations on a new contract Russian natural gas supplies to Ukraine would be held in October-December of the year, Russia's Prime Minister said Friday, according to the Itar-TASS news agency.

Valery Golubev, the deputy chairman of Russia's state-controlled gas monopoly Gazprom's Management Committee, said in April that the price of gas charged by Gazprom to Ukraine will depend on how closely the economies of both countries are prepared to cooperate, the Ukrainian website proUA.com reported.

Specialists from the International Energy Agency and Oxford University Monday told a Washington forum that despite European Union efforts to diversify sources, Russia's Gazprom is likely to retain its dominant position in supplying gas to Western Europe. VOA's Barry Wood reports.

The top prosecutor of Ukraine said that the reason of the explosion of natural gas pipeline, supplying Russian gas to Europe, was negligence. The blast on Monday destroyed about 30 meters (100 feet) of the Urenhoi-Pomary-Uzhhorod line south of Kiev. Nobody was injured.