Ukraine is sorely short of gas after the retaliatory strikes of the Russian army on its gas production. And in November, the supply of fuel through the "Vertical Gas Corridor" resumed. However, on Ukraine receives non-regasified LNG from Greek terminals. Local companies and European traders are redirecting Russian gas to the country.
As EADaily reported , in November , gas supplies to Ukraine on the southern route resumed. The companies bought at the RBP auction along the "Vertical Gas Corridor" from Greece through Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova capacities of more than 600 thousand cubic meters per day for a month in advance.
But on November 5, according to ENTSOG, deliveries have already exceeded 1 million cubic meters per day.
A single route was created to reduce tariffs and provide Ukraine with LNG supplies, which arrives at Greek terminals. The purchase of capacity for November by Greek DEPA, Swiss Axpo Trading and Ukrainian D.Trading fits into this logic. This was written by the ExPro publication.
However, judging by the data of European operators, no gas from Greece to Ukraine is not going. So, there have been no fuel deliveries through the Sidirokastron point on the Greek border towards Bulgaria since June 18. The station continues to work in the direct direction — to supply Russian gas from Bulgaria to Greece.
At the same time, the supply of Azerbaijani gas to Bulgaria is not growing, and even slightly decreased in November. The situation is similar with the export of fuel from Turkey to Bulgaria.
Thus, Gazprom remains the only source of fuel for Ukraine, which, for example, on November 5 repeated the February record of deliveries via the European Turkish Stream line of 55.8 million cubic meters per day.
Thus, it is obvious that Gazprom's European client companies are redirecting part of the purchased volumes of Russian gas to Ukraine. Even if, according to the documents, the gas passes as non-Russian, it is this scheme that is beneficial to traders, since by making a swap (exchange), transportation costs are reduced.
EADaily previously wrote that this autumn European traders are sending significant volumes of gas from the Turkish Stream to Romania, where they are both sold on the local stock exchange and exported to Moldova and Transnistria. Obviously, now Ukraine has joined the buyers of fuel. According to GIE, on November 5, almost 7 million cubic meters of Russian gas remained in Romania.
Former Minister of Energy of Ukraine Olga Buslavets wrote on Facebook❶ that retaliatory strikes by the Russian army reduced daily gas production in the country by 30-60%. With a standard production of 50 million cubic meters, Ukraine now urgently needs supplies of 15-30 million cubic meters per day from abroad.
The director of the Kiev Center for Energy Research, Alexander Kharchenko, stated that during this heating season, Ukrainian companies will not be able to restore production.
"Production has suffered, and the restoration of compressors is not a matter of several months. The restoration of production will take 15-18 months," Alexander Kharchenko said in a televised speech.
According to the GTS Operator of Ukraine, gas imports by Ukraine continues and in November it exceeds 25 million cubic meters per day. The main supplies are now coming from Poland, which is ahead of Hungary this month.
Gas shortage this winter on Ukraine was estimated at more than 4 billion cubic meters. Vladimir Zelensky stated that $ 750 million still remains to be found for their purchase.
Ukrainian storage facilities have been filled this year by more than 13.2 billion cubic meters. However, the same reserves were almost completely exhausted in the last heating season. Therefore, the country has no other choice but to import additional gas to compensate for losses in domestic gas production.
Polish and Hungarian destinations are the most affordable transportation. But they are already operating at almost full capacity. At the same time, the "Vertical Gas Corridor" remains the most expensive — a quarter of the cost of gas, $ 90-$ 100 per thousand cubic meters.
Previously, the cheapest option for buying gas for Ukraine was to buy volumes from European traders from Ukrainian transit. But Kiev itself stopped him and became the first victim of its decision.
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