Operations of the European gas industry are realigning with the changing season, with the warming spring temperatures in Europe and declining prices on the spot market resulting in importers reducing off-take of Russian gas.
According to the data of Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine, nomination for April 26 is 56 million cubic meters, and bookings for April 25 totaled 68.4 million cubic meters.
Rising temperatures and seasonally declining gas consumption allow importers to return to the flexible optimization of booking volumes from suppliers depending on the cost. Gas imported under a month-ahead contract – Gazprom has about half of its exports pegged to this contract – in April is around $1,400 per thousand cubic meters. A day-ahead contract on the spot market is currently $1,050 per thousand cubic meters. Therefore, buyers are increasing their purchases on the spot market, and reducing off-take on record-breaking long-term contracts.
Gas actually flowing via the Yamal-Europe pipeline between Germany and Poland has been continuously pumping in reverse mode since April 7. On Tuesday, the reverse flow of gas from Germany to Poland has dropped 66.7% to 200,000 cubic meters per hour, according to data from the Gascade gas transport operator. Off-take of additional volumes of gas from the main European hubs instead of direct imports from the east is another factor in the current high gas prices in the European Union.
Wind farms provided an average of 17% of the electricity generation in the European Union last week from April 18 to 24, with the figure falling to 9.5% on Monday, according to data from the WindEurope association.
Europe has begun injecting gas into its underground gas storage (UGS) facilities. The current stock level is 31.57%, an increase of 0.33 percentage points over the past day. The current stockpile in the UGS facilities in Europe is 6.3 percentage points behind the five-year average. High prices for imported gas have restrained injection in April.
According to the decree of the Russian president, the government as of April has introduced a new procedure for paying for Russian gas supplies that stipulates the obligatory conversion of the contract currency into rubles through Gazprombank.
The Ministry of Social Policy says that since the introduction of martial law, more than two million people have registered as internally displaced persons.
“I know that now, when talking about internally displaced persons, they often talk about people who have moved after martial law. But the war has been going on for eight years, and the number of those who have been forced to leave their homes since 2014 and seek asylum in other regions of the country is higher. To date, the Unified Information Database on Internally Displaced Persons has information on 3.4 million people,” the ministry’s press service quotes the Minister of Social Policy.
It is noted that more than two million of them are people who were forced to move after the introduction of martial law.
According to the report, most people after the large-scale military invasion of Russia moved to Lviv, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Vinnytsia and Kyiv regions.
Most internally displaced persons are registered in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Kyiv regions.
The Ministry of Social Policy also reports that more than 225,000 people have registered as internally displaced persons through Diia.
The German company Rheinmetall applied to the German Federal Government with another application for the export of 88 tanks Type 1A5 Leopard to Ukraine, the Welt newspaper reported, citing documents provided by the manufacturer.
According to the edition, the application was submitted at the end of last week. Delivery could take place in a few weeks if German Chancellor Olaf Scholz decides.
In addition, earlier bids from Rheinmetall for 100 Marder armored personnel carriers and from Krauss-Maffei Wegmann Group for 100 PzH 2000 self-propelled howitzers were sent for approval.
It is noted that the decision on deliveries is approved by the Federal Security Council, which is headed by the chancellor. So far, Scholz has not agreed to direct deliveries of heavy weapons to Ukraine.
The cost of used Leopard 1A5 tanks, which can be delivered to Ukraine, is about EUR 115 million. Together with Marder BMPs and self-propelled howitzers, the amount of heavy weaponry aid to Ukraine could amount to more than EUR 2 billion.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian discussed tougher sanctions against Russia, Ukraine’s European integration, and treatment of Ukrainian children in France.
“Discussed further sanctions on Russia, arms deliveries to Ukraine, and Ukraine’s EU candidate status. We both welcomed the treatment of Ukrainian children in France under the important initiative led by Ukraine’s and France’s First Ladies,” Kuleba said on Twitter on Monday.
He also congratulated French President Emmanuel Macron on his re-election to office in the regular presidential elections held on Sunday. “I congratulated President Macron and his team on their victory. My French counterpart affirmed that France’s support of Ukraine will grow even stronger,” Kuleba said.
Civilian casualties from February 24, when Russia started the war against Ukraine, to 00:00 on April 24 amounted to 5,718 civilians (in the previous report on Friday some 5,381), including 2,665 killed (2,435), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said on Monday.
The daily summary traditionally states that the increase in the previous summary should not be attributed only to the cases on April 22 to April 24, since during this period the office verified a number of cases from previous days.
“OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration,” the UN said in document.
According to him, this concerns, for example, Mariupol (Donetsk region), Izium (Kharkiv region), and Popasna (Luhansk region), where there are allegations of numerous civilian casualties. These figures are being further corroborated and are not included in the above statistics.
“Most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes,” the UN said.
According to confirmed UN data, some 855 men, 563 women, 69 boys and 59 girls killed, while the gender of 67 children and 1,052 adults has not yet been determined.
Among the 3,053 wounded were 71 boys and 64 girls, as well as 161 children whose gender has not yet been determined.
Compared to Friday’s report, some 11 children were killed and ten more wounded, according to the UN.
OHCHR said that in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as of midnight on April 25, there were 1,136 (933) killed and 1,132 (1,097) wounded in government-controlled territory, and 81 (79) killed and 341 (330) wounded in territory controlled by self-proclaimed “republics.”
In other regions of Ukraine under government control (in Kyiv, as well as in Zhytomyr, Zaporizhia, Kyiv, Sumy, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Cherkasy and Chernihiv regions), the UN recorded 1,448 (1,423) killed and some 1,580 (1,519) wounded.
The agro-industrial group Kernel, due to the blockade of Ukrainian seaports by Russian warships, reduced the rate of export of agricultural products by 90% compared to the pre-war period, from 7.5 million tonnes per year to approximately 750,000 tonnes per year, the group said, citing its CEO Yevhen Osypov.
“Today, Kernel’s export performance has reached only 10% of pre-war results, despite the fact that we export more than 7.5 million tonnes of the products annually. We, like colleagues from other companies, are constantly working on alternative channels for the sale and delivery of products,” his words are quoted in a message from Kernel on the group’s Facebook page on Monday.
According to Osypov’s forecasts, the war unleashed by the Russian Federation could lead to a 40% reduction in sunflower oil exports. Taking into account its exports in the 2020/2021 marketing year (MY, September-August) at the level of 5.13 million tonnes, in the current MY 2021/2022, supplies to foreign markets may be reduced to 3.1 million tonsne.
“The war can become a humanitarian catastrophe for the whole world, but we are doing everything possible to ensure food security,” Kernel’s CEO stated.
As reported, before the Russian military invasion, Ukraine monthly exported up to 5 million tonnes of agricultural products through the ports of Odesa and Mykolaiv, however, due to the blockade of these ports by the aggressor country, Russia, Ukraine can transport no more than 500,000 tonnes of grain monthly, which leads to a monthly shortage of $1.5 billion in export earnings.
