Ukraine has stopped gas imports: Turkish Stream has sunk

From April 1, gas supplies to Ukraine from abroad almost stopped. Obviously, the volumes purchased with credit funds from EU countries have run out. At the same time, deliveries along the European line of the Turkish Stream also sank, as European traders sold part of the Russian gas to Ukraine.

Since April 1, Ukraine has almost stopped importing gas. According to the Ukrainian GTS Operator, for six days of the month, only 8.7 million cubic meters were received from abroad in the country - 1.45 million cubic meters per day. Whereas in March deliveries averaged 26.7 million cubic meters.

Obviously, this situation is due to the fact that the volumes of gas purchased with credit funds in the countries The EU is over. As well as the heating season on Ukraine. Gas extraction from storage facilities has been stopped there and about 24 million cubic meters of gas are pumped every day in April. These volumes come from own production, which previously covered two-thirds of consumption in the country.

According to GIE, there are 9.8 billion cubic meters in Ukrainian storage facilities and more than 3 billion cubic meters are planned to be additionally pumped by October. Will there be enough internal production for this? It all depends on the retaliatory strikes.

Probably, Naftogaz will have to take out a loan again in order to restore stocks by next winter. The national company did this last summer to fill the storage facilities and in the fall to ensure the heating season due to a drop in its own production — due to retaliatory strikes by the Russian army.

It is significant that since April 1, deliveries via the European route of the Turkish Stream, which remained the only route for exporting Russian gas to Europe, have subsided. According to ENTSOG, if in March the average daily deliveries amounted to 54.1 million cubic meters, then during the six days of April they sank by 20% to 42.9 million cubic meters.

On the one hand, the heating season is ending or has ended in the supply regions. On the other hand, the lion's share of the drawdown fell on Romania. In April, deliveries through Bulgaria dropped twice — to 7.6 million cubic meters per day. Transit to Hungary and imports to Romania itself have partially decreased. However, a significant part of the losses is accounted for by Ukraine, which in March received 3.2 million cubic meters per day through Romania.

This route, the "Vertical Gas Corridor", was actively advertised by Ukrainian and Greek politicians last fall, and operators of five countries (Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine) even created a reduced single tariff. However, as the data show, almost all the volumes received by Ukraine through Romania this year in 204 million cubic meters were Russian gas.

So, Ukrainian companies were partially purchased on the Romanian stock exchange, at the same time, almost nothing came from Greece itself, where LNG shipments for Ukraine were supposed to arrive. According to ENTSOG, deliveries to Bulgaria from Greece was only for two weeks in February and amounted to 29 million cubic meters. At the same time, the total imports through Romania to Ukraine was 7 times higher — 204 million cubic meters. Most of them occurred in March, when 101 million cubic meters were received along this route, and from Greece received nothing.

It is obvious that Ukrainian companies received Russian gas, which was resold by European traders. There are long-term partners of Gazprom among them. For example, DESPA, which imports Russian gas, and in November, in the presence of Vladimir Zelensky, signed a memorandum in Athens with Naftogaz for the supply of LNG. It is beneficial for a Greek company to redirect Russian gas, as transportation costs are reduced.