President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the UK for expanding the sanctions list against Russian citizens and businesses for their involvement in the war in Ukraine.
“Today it became known that the UK has expanded the sanctions list against Russia, adding dozens of people and organizations. This is the right trend. I am grateful to the UK for its unwavering firmness in sanctions issues. This is an example that should be inherited by everyone else in the Western community,” he said in a video statement.
The European Union will be able to double the export of Ukrainian electricity this week, European Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson said at a press conference in Brussels on Tuesday after an informal meeting of EU energy ministers with their Ukrainian counterpart Herman Galushchenko on the sidelines extraordinary meeting of the EU Energy Council.
“If commercial electricity trading helps Ukraine offset some of the revenue losses, then this is the way forward. We are not waiting for any specific technical conditions to start trading. Trading is already underway,” she stated.
The European Commissioner recalled that the Ukrainian and Moldovan power transmission networks “were synchronized with the European one in record time.”
“I will continue to support the next step of a full-fledged electricity trade with Ukraine. The first commercial cross-border electricity exchange began at the end of June with Romania, and with Slovakia in July. At the moment, the trading capacity is 1,500 megawatts. But European transmission network operators meet on this week and will discuss doubling this amount,” Simson said.
In this regard, the European Commissioner opined that “by doing so, we will also be able to compensate for some of the production of capacities that here in the EU must be produced with gas, most likely gas from Russia.”
“These are mutually beneficial actions. But our cooperation in the future is not only electricity and gas, but you can expect that soon we will be ready to announce future cooperation in the field of clean gases, renewable gases. This is a market that will develop in Europe, and Ukraine has great opportunities to become our trading partner in the coming years,” she explained.
Simson also said that the EU-Ukraine High Level Energy Market Integration Panel will resume work in September, “accelerating the necessary reforms.” “This will be even more important, since Ukraine now has the status of an EU candidate with a clear European perspective,” the European Commissioner said.
In addition, she noted that Ukraine has the largest gas storage facilities in Europe. “And it’s in our joint interest to use them for security purposes,” Simson said.
For his part, Minister of Energy of Ukraine German Galushchenko noted that Ukraine has the ability to store more than 12 billion gas for European companies in its underground gas storage facilities “in fairly safe places.”
Galushchenko stressed that the Ukrainian gas transportation system could guarantee gas supplies at the level of those volumes that are transported to Europe through Nord Stream 1, “if the Russians close it.”
“Even during the war, we ensured the security of supplies of those volumes that go through the Ukrainian pipeline, and this was our obligation to our European partners. We are fulfilling this obligation,” the Minister of Energy stressed.
As for the export of Ukrainian electricity, according to him, today it is a direct replacement for Russian gas.
“Today we export 100 MW to Europe. But technically we could already increase it to 1.5-1.7 thousand MW, realizing that this can replace up to five to six billion cubic meters of Russian gas with Ukrainian electricity,” he said.
In addition, Galushchenko focused on the behavior of the Russian invaders at the site of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.
“What they are doing there is called nuclear terrorism. And therefore, we must be aware that in the 21st century, only one country can behave like a terrorist. And this is a matter of nuclear security. This is not only a matter between Ukraine and Russia, this is a question of the whole world,” the head of the Ministry of Energy stressed.
Ukraine’s government emergency response team CERT-UA, operating under the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection, warns of the distribution of new dangerous emails with the subject “Final Payment”.
“Opening the archive will download malware and, as a result, steal data,” the message says.
CERT-UA links the attack to UAC-0041 (“Russian hacktivists”).
Employees of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), together with the Kyiv prosecutor’s office, detained one of the deputy directors of the transport department of the Kyiv city administration for extorting a bribe, Mayor of the capital Vitaliy Klitschko said.
“As long as law enforcement agencies are dealing with the bribe-taker and the investigation continues, he will be immediately suspended from duty,” he wrote on his Telegram channel on Tuesday evening.
“The city authorities are ready to continue to cooperate with law enforcement agencies to prevent and fight corruption. We constantly transfer the materials of internal audits of the Kyiv City State Administration and cooperate with law enforcement agencies,” the mayor emphasized.
NJSC Naftogaz Ukrainy has announced a default on its eurobonds due to the government’s refusal to agree on payments on them.
“The deadline for payments to holders of Naftogaz Eurobonds expired on July 26 without payment taking place,” the company said in a press release published on Tuesday evening.
Naftogaz said that the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers had earlier on July 21 issued order No. 625-r obliging Naftogaz officials to seek Cabinet approval before executing any transactions related to the company’s eurobonds.
In its official letter to the government, Naftogaz indicated the availability of the necessary funds in its accounts to cover eurobond payments. Naftogaz officials also detailed the possible negative consequences for the company and for the country in the event of a hard default on eurobond payments.
The company said that in response, the Cabinet of Ministers failed to provide permission for Naftogaz to fulfill its payment obligations to eurobond holders for either the 2022 issue or the 2024 issue.
“The government has therefore defaulted on Naftogaz eurobond payments. As this failure to meet its eurobond obligations effectively deprives Naftogaz of access to international capital markets, the Cabinet of Ministers as the responsible party now assumes full responsibility for raising the funds necessary for the import of natural gas for the 2022-2023 heating season,” the company said in the press release.
In the first 27 days of exporting electricity to the EU, NPC Ukrenergo earned over UAH 500 million from the sale of access to interstate power lines at cross-border sections with Romania and Slovakia, the company’s press service reported on Monday.
“This is the result of high competition at auctions for access to interstate power grids, which Ukrenergo conducts according to transparent European rules. From six to 13 participants participated in each of the auctions,” the report says.
It clarifies that in the direction of Romania there were ten or more companies in most auctions, and more than six in the direction of Slovakia, while in total more than 200 participants have already registered for participation in the auctions.
The company notes that the export of electricity to the EU countries allows the state and electricity producers to earn funds to prepare for the heating season: buy coal, finance repairs of power units of power plants and grids. In particular, at present, the company sells at auctions all available transmission capacity with Romania and Slovakia – 100 MW, which is in demand, since the price of electricity in the EU exceeds the Ukrainian one by several times.
The company’s income from access to interstate grids during the war can be used to settle the balancing market to give electricity producers an additional resource to prepare for winter. To this end, amendments to the law on the electricity market are expected.
According to Ukrenergo, the weighted average daily price of access to sections with Romania and Slovakia amounted to UAH 7,700 per MW over 24 days. At the same time, the highest weighted average price was at auctions for the delivery day on July 26 – UAH 14,600 per MW. At the same time, in previous years, such a record did not exceed UAH 3,000/MW.
