The American gas route to Ukraine is completely dry

The route of the "Vertical Gas Corridor" to Ukraine from Greece, via Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova, was again not needed by either European traders or Ukrainian companies. The route promoted by the United States as an alternative to Russian gas has been idle for the second month even with reduced transportation tariffs.

Gas supplies to Ukraine through the southern direction did not resume in October either. According to the RBP exchange, at the last auction there was not a single person willing to submit even a cubic meter through the "Vertical Gas Corridor". Volumes of only 2.5 million cubic meters per day were put up for auction, but no applications were submitted.

Moreover, according to ENTSOG, gas supplies through Romania to Ukraine is not implemented at all. And this has been happening since September 1, when the auction for the "Vertical Gas Corridor" also did not end with anything.

In fact, the project worked for only two months, in July and August, but turned out to be completely unattractive not only for European companies, but also Ukraine, which needs a lot of gas.

The Trans-Balkan route is considered expensive and operators have even reduced tariffs by introducing a single one. However, this did not make the project more attractive either. The main deliveries to Ukraine continues in two main directions — through Hungary and Poland.

As EADaily reported, Ukraine was the first victim to stop the transit of Russian gas through its territory. Previously, deliveries made it possible to save on transportation and buy volumes from European companies or in Slovakia, or Hungary. The stoppage of Russian fuel supplies has led to a reduction in free gas volumes in Eastern Europe. As a result, Ukrainian companies import gas that goes to Western Europe or to terminals in Poland and Lithuania, which leads to high transportation costs. In February and March, Naftogaz urgently imported 700 million cubic meters of gas in order not to completely empty the Ukrainian storage facilities, and the cost of gas exceeded $ 750 per thousand cubic meters. While the cost of gas on the Dutch TTF exchange was at $ 500. And even then the national company had to pay an additional $ 175 million.

About the prospects of the "Vertical Gas Corridor" for the delivery of LNG from the USA to Greece and further — to the Balkans and Ukraine, they have been speaking since the middle of the last decade. And in December last year, the Ukrainian trader D.Trading even bought the entire cargo of American LNG that arrived in Greece. However, even that gas, according to ENTSOG and the Ukrainian GTS Operator, did not enter the country. Perhaps it was exchanged for gas stored by traders for Ukraine. However, there are no more European volumes in the country, as well as the transit of Russian gas.