Gas reserves in Ukrainian underground gas storage facilities exceed 8 billion cubic meters
Natural gas reserves in Ukrainian underground gas storage facilities (UGS) exceeded 8 billion cubic meters on June 28.
This is stated in the ExPro publication, the Ukrainian News agency reports.
The report states that the storage facilities are 25.9% full.
Compared to last year, the storage facilities have 19.6%, or 1.95 billion cubic meters less gas.
This year's reserves remain the lowest in at least the last 11 years, but the gap from last year is narrowing.
Thus, for the first time since the beginning of this year's injection season, the gap from last year has fallen below 20%.
Gas injection volumes remain significantly higher than last year.
Thus, since the beginning of June, 1.25 billion cubic meters of natural gas have been injected into Ukrainian underground gas storage facilities, which is 1.8 times more than in the same period last year.
In total, gas injection into storage facilities is expected to reach almost 1.34 billion cubic meters in June, which will be the largest monthly injection volume in the last 20 months, since August 2023.
Since the start of this year's gas injection season (April 17), more than 2.6 billion cubic meters of natural gas have been injected into storage facilities, which is 38% more than last year.
This is despite the fact that last year the injection season started earlier - on March 31.
The average daily volume of gas injection into storage facilities in June is 44.7 million cubic meters, 26% more than in May.
In addition, 49.3 million cubic meters of gas were injected into storage facilities on June 20, which is a new highest daily injection level since October 2023.
By the start of the next heating season (November 1), Ukraine needs to accumulate at least about 13 billion cubic meters of natural gas in storage facilities.
This means that in July-October it is necessary to pump about 5 billion cubic meters.
If the gas injection rate remains at the level of June, the goal will be achieved slightly ahead of schedule.
Part of the needs will be covered by domestic production, the rest of the gas will have to be imported.
According to ExPro estimates, in the baseline scenario, about 2.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas will need to be imported in July-October.
As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, Ukraine is actively pumping natural gas into underground gas storage facilities (UGS), reducing the backlog from last year.
In early June, the former CEO of the Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine, Serhii Makohon, stated that the historical minimum of gas in Ukraine's UGS is 2.02 billion cubic meters of active gas.