Ukraine does not get along with LNG from Greece and gas from Azerbaijan: there is no free Russian

In December, operators of five countries increased the number of routes along the "Vertical Gas Corridor" to Ukraine from one to three — by source of supply. However, so far there have been no takers for any of them. In January, supplies will drop to zero. Perhaps the lack of applicants is due to the lack of free volumes of Russian gas, which European traders redirected to Ukraine.

Ukraine needs a lot of gas to compensate for the drop in domestic production after retaliatory strikes by the Russian army. However, the "Vertical Gas Corridor" does not live up to expectations. There are no takers.

In December, the GTS operators of Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine has agreed on two more routes for gas supplies to Ukraine from the south. Route 2 (LNG terminal in Alexandroupolis) and Route 3 (interconnector on the border of Greece and Bulgaria for the supply of Azerbaijani gas) were added to Route 1 (via the Greek Revitusa LNG terminal). On December 22, an auction was held on the Hungarian RBP platform, where deliveries for January were put up. 2.3 million cubic meters per day were offered on Route 1, 4.9 million on Route 2, and 4.9 million on Route 3. However, there were no takers for any route and in January the "Vertical Gas Corridor" will be dry.

In December, in this direction on Ukraine receives a little more than 2 million cubic meters every day. 1.3 million cubic meters of them are booked on Route 1, and the remaining 900 thousand cubic meters are from Romania.

Bidding on three routes without a single bid is surprising because the day before, in November, Vladimir Zelensky visited Athens and Naftogaz signed a memorandum with the Greek DEPA on the supply of regasified LNG, which was planned to begin in December-January.

Perhaps the lack of bookings is due to the lack of free volumes of Russian gas, which Greek and other EU swap traders redirected to Ukraine from the Turkish Stream through Bulgaria. Indirectly, this is confirmed by the platform of GTS operators of EU countries ENTSOG. According to her, physical gas supplies from This year, only seven days of June were carried out from Greece to Bulgaria, while Azerbaijani gas was supplied from The flow of Greece to Bulgaria is stable all year round and does not exceed 2.7 million cubic meters per day.

At the same time, deliveries via the European route of the Turkish Stream increased in December to a new historical maximum — 55.6 million cubic meters per day. And with the arrival of the winter cold, it is obvious that European traders are taking Russian gas for their regular customers.

Moreover, this year along the Black Sea route, fuel receives and Slovakia, which was left without Ukrainian transit. And the Turkish Stream itself works on superpower. The annual capacity of one line of the gas pipeline was declared at the level of 15.75 billion cubic meters (43 million cubic meters per day).

In addition, the "Vertical Gas Corridor" is too expensive. Even after the introduction of a single tariff from In Greece, it is seriously inferior in price to the Hungarian and Polish directions, through which the main supplies go to the country. In December, imports amounted to about 25 million cubic meters per day.

In October, Naftogaz reported on nine retaliatory strikes by the Russian army — on gas production. The national company estimated that Ukraine would have to import more than 4 billion cubic meters in addition.

As EADaily reported, Ukraine became the first victim of its own stop of the transit of Russian gas. This route made it possible to buy volumes from European traders and reduce transportation costs as much as possible.