July, 1, 2020, Kyiv – In the first half-year of 2020, natural gas imports from the EU reached 7 billion cubic meters. This is 24% (1.4 billion cubic meters)  more than in the same period last year. That is also 40% more than the average in 2016-2019.

Besides, according to the operational data by LLC “GTS Operator of Ukraine”, 1.8 billion cubic meters of natural gas were imported to Ukraine in June 2020. This is 9% more (by 154 million cubic meters) than the import volumes in June 2019. And 36% more (by 482 million cubic meters) exceeding the import volumes in April 2020.

During the first half-year of 2020, imports from Slovakia were about 3.9 billion cubic meters (+16% compared to the same period last year), from Hungary – 2.2 billion cubic meters (+39%), from Poland – 0.9 billion cubic meters (+34%).

It should be noted that import volumes include the virtual reverse, which became available for the first time since this year: from Hungary – 1.2 billion cubic meters and from Poland – 0.5 billion cubic meters.

Since the beginning of the year, 3.7 billion cubic meters of imported volumes, including 49% or 1.8 billion cubic meters in short-haul mode, – were transferred to underground gas storages to be stored in the “customs warehouse” mode.

As of today, all imported volumes of natural gas come exclusively from EU countries. Since November 2015, Ukraine has not been importing gas from the Russian Federation.

*Virtual reverse (backhaul) became available since 2020 after the unbundling of the Gas TSO of Ukraine into a separate company, independent of Naftogaz Group, and with the signing of new technical agreements with related Gas TSOs with neighboring countries.