Ukraine has increased its gas import from Europe through Poland to five million cubic metres per day starting 1 April, Ukrainian gas transit state monopoly Ukrtransgas said. This is 2.5 times the previous average amount of two million cubic metres 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.
Ukrainian Deputy Energy Minister Volodymyr Makukha said importing natural gas from European markets doesn’t violate international law. Russian energy company Gazprom accused Ukraine of acting fraudulently by pursuing reverse shipments of European natural gas. “It's an absolutely legal and clean arrangement: gas crosses the Ukrainian border, so what questions can there be?” Makukha said.
Overall in 2013, Ukraine plans to import between five-seven billion cubic metres of natural gas from Europe and reduce its import from Russia to 20 billion cubic metres. Comparably, Ukraine imported about 33 billion cubic metres 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 metres per day at a price of USD 390 per thousand cubic metres.
Since the beginning of the reverse gas supply Ukraine has imported from Germany about 100 million cubic metres of gas as of 28 March. 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 metres of gas per day with the possibility to reach 15 million per day after appropriate modernisation is employed.
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 metres 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 this month.
The negotiations with Romanian Transgaz have resulted in signing of the memorandum of intent. Ukraine is exploring the possibility of importing up to five million cubic metres of natural gas per day from Slovakia through Tekovo.
