A preliminary agreement had been reached over the prices of Russian gas sold to Ukraine, visiting Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich said on Wednesday.

"We have reached a mutual agreement on the formation of a certain balance of gas till the end of this year and for the next year in the amount of 24.5 billion cubic meters," Yanukovich told reporters after talks with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

"A total of 130 million cubic meters will be daily pumped into gas holders," he added.

"We have approximately fixed price parameters up till the end of the year and for the next year," he said. "They will be coordinated, but will be market (price), and the mechanism of the price formation will be transparent," the prime minister stressed.

After a bitter, months-long dispute over gas prices, Russian gas giant Gazprom and Ukraine's national oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy clinched a deal in January, under which Gazprom would raise gas prices to US$230 per 1,000 cubic meters to RosUkr Energo, a newly-set Russian-Ukrainian joint venture, which could mix the Russian gas with cheaper gas from Central Asia and sell the blend to Ukraine for US$95 per 1,000 cubic meters.

(Xinhua News Agency August 17, 2006)