Since July 1, Ukraine has significantly increased the import of natural gas into the country, which made it possible to increase the volume of its injection into underground gas storage (UGS) facilities, Head of Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine LLC (OGTSU) Serhiy Makogon has said on his Facebook page.
“Since the beginning of July, gas imports to Ukraine have significantly increased. Now it amounts to 15.8 million cubic meters per day. 91% comes from Hungary, 7% from Slovakia, and 2% from Poland. Additional receipts will allow increasing gas injection into UGS facilities to ensure the passage of the next heating season,” he wrote.
At the beginning of the second decade of June, Makogon said that the average daily gas import to Ukraine reached 3 million cubic meters, which is five times less than the current July import (15.8 million cubic meters).
According to the calculations of Interfax-Ukraine based on the data of JSC Ukrtransgaz, the average daily injection into the UGS facility during June amounted to 19.1 million cubic meters, while on July 1, it increased 1.8 times (by 15.1 million cubic meters), to 34.2 million cubic meters.
Maintaining such rates of injection throughout the current month will allow replenishing storage facilities by more than 1 billion cubic meters of gas and enter in August with reserves of about 17.3 billion cubic meters.
From the end of the season of gas withdrawal from storage facilities on April 29 to July 1, 2021, reserves in Ukrainian UGS facilities expanded by 6.3% (by 958.6 million cubic meters), to 16.249 billion cubic meters.