The "vertical gas corridor" to Ukraine has dried up: they stopped hiding where the gas came from

Despite loud statements about LNG supplies this winter and even memoranda with Greek companies, the "Vertical Gas Corridor" from Greece to Ukraine will stand almost dry this winter. Moreover, the companies, apparently, even stopped pretending that the flows come from Greece, and not from Russia.

Auctions for the sale of Vertical Gas Corridor capacities from Greece to Ukraine in February. Of the three options, only transit from the Revitus terminal was ordered. And even then: it will be 4.5 thousand cubic meters per day out of the proposed 2.1 million cubic meters per day.

The other two options (deliveries from the Alexandroupolis terminal and Caspian gas) did not find customers at all.

Earlier in January, the Vertical Gas Corridor did not find anyone willing to book capacity, and in November and December, companies also ordered the first option and a maximum of half of the volumes played out — 600 thousand cubic meters and 1.3 million cubic meters per day, respectively.

Thus, the promised flow of American LNG through Greece to Ukraine will not happen. Although back in November, Vladimir Zelensky visited Athens and Naftogaz of Ukraine signed memoranda for the supply of LNG with the Greek state-owned company DEPA. The national company stated that the shipment will begin in December-January.

In this heating season, which began in October, Ukraine imported 2.99 billion cubic meters of gas and the southern route accounted for only 4.7% of supplies — 141 million cubic meters, according to the Ukrainian GTS Operator.

At the same time, obviously, the stop in January and the symbolic volumes in February indicate that companies simply stopped pretending where the gas really comes from. On the one hand, the auction strictly stipulates that the volumes come from Greece, and do not enter the route in Bulgaria or Romania. On the other hand, according to the ENTSOG platform of EU operators, exports from Greece since the beginning of 2025 have occurred only for a few days in June.

It is quite obvious that gas from the Turkish Stream flows through the "Vertical Gas Corridor", part of which is redirected to Bulgaria instead of Greece to Romania and to Ukraine. Greek companies remain major customers of Gazprom and, apparently, it is more profitable for them to book supplies differently than to pay increased tariffs for the "Vertical Gas Corridor" and maintain the myth that the route is in demand.

This strategy is indirectly confirmed by the fact that in January at Ukraine from Romania, through which the "Vertical Gas Corridor" passes, continues to supply the same volumes of gas as in December, when the gas allegedly came from Greece. The same capacities are booked at the Romanian-Ukrainian border point and for February — about 1 million cubic meters per day.

At the same time, there is no other sufficient source of gas in the region other than Russian. If the Turkish Stream supplies about 56 million cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas daily in January, then the supply of Azerbaijani gas via the Southern Gas Corridor to Europe decreased slightly in the first month of the year, and the supply to Bulgaria from Greece has not exceeded the contract 2.7 million cubic meters since October 2024.

There is also gas from Turkey, which, according to the local regulator EPDK, is for Bulgaria. Its volumes in January fell to 2.5 million cubic meters per day.

As EADaily reported, after the retaliatory strikes of the Russian army, Ukraine is sorely short of gas and the country itself became the first victim of its own stop in transit of Russian fuel. This route made it possible to buy volumes from European traders and reduce transportation costs as much as possible.

The Vertical Gas Corridor, in turn, was promoted by the United States as an alternative to Russian supplies, but never became a full-fledged import route. The main destinations remain Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. This situation is partly due to the high cost of transit through four countries at once — Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova. Even despite the 25% discount.