Brussels, 05/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 3 February, Ukraine's gas company Naftogaz announced that gas imports in Ukraine decreased by 20% in January 2015 compared with January 2014 and that the country's structure for supply has changed radically - to the benefit of supplies from Europe, which rose very steeply, and to the detriment of supplies from Russia, which dropped by 64% as they were more expensive.
According to Ukrtransgaz, Ukraine's national gas transmission system operator (TSO), Ukraine imported 2 billion cubic metres of gas in January 2015, including 1 billion cubic metres via Slovakia, 0.1 billion cubic metres via Hungary, and 0.9 billion cubic metres via Russia. In January 2014, Ukraine imported 2.5 billion cubic metres of gas, all of which came from Russia. On 31 January 2015, gas imports in Ukraine stood at 63.1 million cubic metres per day - over two thirds of which (42.5 million cubic metres) came from the EU.
Besides the price factor (Russian gas company Gazprom sells its gas to Ukraine at a more expensive price than European suppliers), this change is the result of transmission capacity being doubled between Slovakia and Ukraine in five months - from 8 billion cubic metres to 15 billion cubic metres per year, Naftogaz states. Since 24 January, Slovakia's reverse flow capacity to Ukraine rose from 31 million cubic metres per day to 40 million cubic metres per day, thanks to an agreement between Ukrtransgaz and the Slovak TSO, Eustream, under the aegis of the European Commission.
“In 2015, this route can cover nearly 60% of Ukraine's demand for imported gas. Just a year ago such an ability to diversify our gas supplies was unthinkable”, Naftogaz stated. Indeed, it would like to make the interconnection between Slovakia and Ukraine a platform that enables countries in South-East Europe (Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Serbia), which are very dependent on Russian gas, to diversify their supplies and improve their ability to resist possible supply shocks by being fed by the big market hubs in Western Europe. (EH)