Berlin  - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin appealed Friday in Berlin to big western energy companies to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure a resumption of shipments of Siberian gas.

He later began an hour of scheduled talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the crisis, which is in its third week.

Meeting executives of E. ON Ruhrgas of Germany, ENI of Italy and Gaz de France, Putin proposed a consortium pay for "technical" gas, which is removed from the pipeline to power the giant pumps that keep the remainder of the gas moving westwards.

Putin said the cost of the gas to power the pumps would be 730 million dollars in the first quarter of this year alone. He said that strictly speaking, it should be Ukraine that paid to power the pumps.

Although Germany is still receiving Russian gas via Belarus and has high stocks - 59 per cent of maximum storage capacity as of Monday this week - it is pressing for a quick end to the Kiev-Moscow dispute.

Merkel phoned Ukraine's leaders on Thursday, before her appointment with Putin, who was paying his first visit to Germany since leaving the Russian presidency and becoming prime minister last May.

ENI chief executive Paolo Scaroni said after meeting Putin that he expected a settlement within hours, after he had spoken with the Russian gas monopoly, Gazprom.

Technical gas is at the focus of the dispute because Ukraine insists it has a right to remove 21 million cubic metres of gas daily to power the pumps whereas Russia accuses the Ukrainians of "stealing" the gas.

Russia cut all supplies of gas to Ukraine on January 7 as the dispute worsened.

A German government spokesman said Merkel expected Moscow and Kiev to adhere to their contractual obligations and resume natural gas supplies to Europe without further delay.

Failure to do so would harm the reputations of both countries and dent the credibility of Moscow in the West, the spokesman added.

Despite a series of agreements, Russian gas exports via Ukraine remained cut off for the 10th day Friday, leaving some European countries without sufficient fuel to heat homes and factories.

The European Union relies on Russia for about 20 per cent of its natural gas. Germany, Europe's biggest economy, gets 37 per cent of its gas supplies from Russia.

Putin is due to meet Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko for talks on energy in Moscow on Saturday. On Friday, senior officials from Eastern Europe gathered in Kiev for a blitz energy summit.

Following his talks with Merkel, Putin was to to travel to the eastern city of Dresden to pick up an award for promoting Russo- German cultural relations.

A German human rights group, the Society for Threatened Peoples, said Putin did not deserve the honour because of atrocities committed by Russian troops in Chechnya during his time as president.

Putin served as a Soviet KGB officer in Dresden until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. (dpa)