Ukraine More Than Doubles Gas Import From Europe

KYIV, Ukraine, April 4, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Ukraine has increased its gas import from Europe through Poland to five million cubic meters per day starting April 1, 2013, reports Ukrtransgas, the Ukrainian gas transit state monopoly. This is 2.5 times the previous average amount of two million cubic meters per day. The gas supply increase has been stipulated in the contract between the German electric utilities company RWE and the national oil and gas company of Ukraine NJSC Naftogaz Ukrainy.

Overall in 2013, Ukraine plans to import between 5-7 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Europe and reduce its import from Russia to 20 billion cubic meters. Comparably, Ukraine imported about 33 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia in 2012.

In order to achieve this goal, Ukraine started receiving European gas through Poland employing Ukrainian gas transporting system (GTS) in reverse mode since November 2012. Notably, in January-March 2013, the volume of gas Ukraine imported through Polish Gaz-System S.A. amounted to 2 million cubic meters per day at a price of USD 390 per thousand cubic meters.

Since the beginning of the reverse gas supply Ukraine has imported from Germany about 100 million cubic meters of gas as of March 28, 2013. Interestingly, this was the day when Ukraine started receiving European gas through Hungarian operator FGSZ Ltd as well. The transfer capacity of Hungarian-Ukrainian pipeline amounts to three million cubic meters of gas per day with the possibility to reach 15 million per day after appropriate modernization is employed in April-June, 2013, reports http://www.liga.net.    

In addition, Ukraine also plans to import gas through Slovakia and Romania. As of today, there are four pipelines connecting Ukraine and Slovakia and if the parties agree to use one of them in reverse mode it could result in about 10 billion cubic meters of gas supply to Ukraine annually. The negotiations between Ukrainian Ukrtransgaz and Slovakian Eustream are currently underway.  Reportedly the parties are expected to sign the Interconnection as well as the Technical Agreement in April, 2013.

The negotiations with Romanian S.N.T.G.N. Transgaz S.A. have resulted in signing of the memorandum of intent. Ukraine is exploring the possibility of importing up to five million cubic meters of natural gas per day from Slovakia through Tekovo.