March 5, 2021 – Gas transit to Europe in February 2021 amounted to 2 906 million cubic meters. That is 25% less than in January. Such dynamics was affected by the market conditions in the EU countries: due to increased demand and volatile prices, traders started active withdrawal of gas from underground gas storage facilities.

The overall volume of transit in January-February 2021 amounted to 6 769 million cubic meters of gas. It included a total of 6 111 million cubic meters of gas, transited by GTSOU in the western direction: 684 million cubic meters to Poland; 3 811 million cubic meters to Slovakia; and 1 617 million cubic meters to Hungary.

In the southern direction, the transit volume was 1.090 million cubic meters: 309 million cubic meters to Romania and 781 million cubic meters to Moldova.

At present, the dynamics of transit volumes shows that the Ukrainian GTS mainly acts as a balancing capacity in case of fluctuations in gas demand in the EU countries or technical limitations on other gas pipelines.

 “Under the terms of the contract with Gazprom*, we receive payments for the entire volume of booked capacities, irrespective of the volume of transit (“ship or pay”). Nevertheless, the Ukrainian GTS is still capable of transiting additional 100 billion cubic meters of gas per year beyond the contracted volumes. Today we see that our GTS acts as a balancing capacity when Yamal, Turkish Stream and Nord Stream-1 are fully loaded”, – said Sergiy Makogon, General Director of GTSOU.  “We have got enough flexible capacity to guarantee gas supplies to Europe in case of outages or scheduled maintenance of other gas pipelines. This situation, though, should not be taken for granted. If no significant volumes of gas are transited in the future, the GTS must be optimized to meet the actual demand reducing operating costs and ensuring an economically justified tariff for consumers and commercial clients”.

* A five-year transit agreement between PJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine and Russia’s Gazprom was signed at the end of 2019. It provides for Gazprom booking transit capacities in the amount of 65 billion cubic meters (178 million cubic meters / day) in 2020 and 40 billion cubic meters (110 million cubic meters / day) in 2021-2024.