Page 6 - FSUOGM Week 31 2021

FSUOGM PIPELINES & TRANSPORT FSUOGM

Ukraine gets winter gas stocks

in place in advance

UKRAINE UKRAINE’S state-owned gas company has the 2017-2018 heating season, which stood at 16.8bn
minimum legally allowed amount of gas in stor- cubic metres.
The winter heating age ahead of the winter heating season, the com- The next year’s heating season, Ukraine was
season does not begin pany said in a press release on August 2. able to store 17.1 bcm.
until mid-October. Following an especially cold winter and an During the 2020-2021 heating season,
unusually hot summer demand for gas used to Ukraine stored a record 28.3 bcm of gas in the
generate power has been high and has led to a country’s storage facilities as it faced fears of
drain on reserves that has seen storage of gas fall being cut off while negotiating a new transit deal
to multi-year lows. with Russia.
Ukraine has 17bn cubic metres of natural A new deal was signed at the last minute. Rus-
gas into its underground gas storage facilities, sia and Ukraine have a five-year agreement to the
Naftogaz said, at a time when Russia’s Gazprom end of 2024 that guarantees Russia will transport
is sending only its contractually agreed gas to no less than 40 bcm through Ukraine each year
Europe. Prices for gas have rocketed four-fold and must pay Kyiv at least $7.2bn over the dura-
to over $400 per thousand cubic metres, a price tion of the contract.
more typical for the winter than the summer. Naftogaz stopped buying gas directly from
“According to our plan, the amount of gas Russia in November 2015. The company began
stored will be even higher,” said Yuriy Vitrenko, buying Russian gas from the European market.
head of Naftogaz. Ukraine’s gas monopolist bought it from Poland,
The amount of gas stored by Naftogaz as Slovakia, and Hungary in a procedure known as
of August 1 exceeded the total reserves for the “reverse flow.” ™

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 31 03•August•2021