Natural gas stocks in Ukraine’s underground storage facilities since the beginning of the 2016/2017 heating season started on October 13 and as of December 3, narrowed by 1.324 million cubic meters, or by 9%, to 13.408 billion cubic meters.
According to public joint-stock company Ukrtransgaz, on December 3, Ukraine pumped 55.64 million cubic meters from the underground storage facilities and in the period from December 1 through December 3 – 153.45 million cubic meters. In November daily gas pumping was 30.31 million cubic meters.
As of December 3, daily imports of gas were 54.442 million cubic meters (42.679 million cubic meters from Slovakia, 7.621 million cubic meters from Hungary, and 4.142 million cubic meters from Poland). Ukraine halted imports of gas from Russia since November 26, 2015 (for almost 12 months).
Gas production in Ukraine on December 3, was 55.725 million cubic meters (Ukrgazvydobuvannia – 40.324 million cubic meters, Ukrnafta – 3.304 million cubic meters and other companies – 12.097 million cubic meters).
Transit via Ukrainian gas transport system in the first days of December was large. On December 1 through December 3, it was 873.3 million cubic meters (equals the monthly figure of around 8.7 billion cubic meters).
Ukrtransgaz Head Ihor Prokopiv said that the company presented a road map to Naftogaz Ukrainy. Ukraine’s needs in daily imports until March 1, 2017 are to be 40-42 million cubic meters, and only from March 1, 2017 the need will fall to 27 million cubic meters.
Naftogaz Ukrainy believes that natural gas stocks in Ukraine’s underground storage facilities are enough to last the heating season. The company has technical opportunities to additionally import more gas if winter is cold. According to the holding’s calculations, at the end of the heating season 7-8 billion cubic meters of gas would be left in the underground storage facilities with the limit of no less than 5 billion cubic meters.
Ukrtransgaz operates the system of trunk gas pipelines and 12 underground gas storage facilities in the country with a total capacity of 31 billion cubic meters. (Interfax/Business World Magazine)