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of Hungary’s imported gas passes through Ukraine.
Swedish appeals court has revoked a previous suspension of an arbitration ruling that blocked attempts by Ukraine’s Naftogaz to seize Russian gas major's Gazprom ’s foreign assets in Europe, Reuters reported on September 13 citing the court ruling and without providing additional details. The decision could put Gazprom's assets in Europe under threat, as previously Naftogaz tried to seize Gazprom and Nord Stream 2 pipeline assets as part of the execution of the $2.6bn decision of Stockholm Arbitration in favour of Naftogaz. On February 28 the Stockholm's arbitration court ruled that Gazprom must pay Ukraine’s Naftogaz a total of $2.6bn , ending a four-year legal battle over gas supply contracts. Later, to enforce the decision Naftogaz Naftogaz's attempted to seize Gazprom's assets in the Netherlands and Switzerland. In June, however, another Swedish court put on pause the earlier ruling by Stockholm Arbitrage to award Naftogaz $2.6bn compensation for the duration of an appeal brought by Gazprom, effectively blocking any asset seizure attempts and the need for Gazprom to repay the $2.6bn award until its appeal is fully reviewed. It is this latest decision that has now been reportedly revoked.
Ukraine’s pipelines have transported 6% less gas in August than during the same period in 2017 . The 58bn cubic meters of gas shipped means that Ukraine is only using 62% of the gas transit system’s annual capacity, 140bn cubic meters. Analysts fear that volumes will dwindle further after the opening of Nord Stream 2, the direct Russia – Germany pipeline. Scheduled to open in two years, this new pipeline will have an annual carrying capacity of 55bn cubic meters.
Ukraine accumulates over 15 bcm of natural gas in storage facilities as of September 10, or 48% of the total storage capacity. Gas stocks on September 1-8 grew by 2.7%, or 403mn cubic meters (mcm), the operator of Ukraine's gas transport system Ukrtransgaz has said. On August 8, the company pumped 50.26 mcm into the underground storage facilities. Ukrtransgaz on April 13, 2018, stopped taking gas from the storage facilities and started to pump 19-28 mcm of gas into them on a daily basis. Early in 2018, the country had a record high amount of natural gas as of the beginning of the year in the past five years, having 14.7 bcm in stock.
Drillers in Kharkiv discovered last month the third gas field of the year in the region , a formation that could hold 1bn cubic meters. State gas producer Ukrgazvydobuvannya announced the discovery, following discoveries in Kharkiv region in May and June. Last year, this Naftogaz subsidiary increased its production by 4.4% to 15.2bcm, slightly more than half of Ukraine’s consumption. From that level, the company hopes a stepped up drilling program will increase production by one third, to 20.1bcm in 2020.
In January-August 2018, Ukraine transported 58.2 billion cubic meters of gas, showing a 6 percent decrease compared to the same period in 2017. "The volume of gas transported through the territory of Ukraine from the Russian Federation to European countries and Moldova was 58.2 billion cubic meters. Since the beginning of the year, the transit volume has decreased by 3.8 billion cubic meters, or by 6% compared to the same period in 2017," Ukrtransgaz press service reports
48 UKRAINE Country Report October 2018 www.intellinews.com