Gas reserves formed by Ukraine in UGS smaller compared to last year

Gas reserves in underground gas storage facilities (UGS), including gas from foreign traders, amount to 15.75 billion cubic meters.

Oleksii Chernyshov, chairman of the board of the Naftogaz of Ukraine national joint-stock company, said this in an interview with LB.ua, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

As of October 6, foreign traders pumped 2.2 billion cubic meters of gas into Ukrainian underground gas storage facilities.

Thus, the estimated reserves of Ukrainian gas in UGS amount to 13.5 billion cubic meters, which is 4% lower than in mid-October 2022 (14.1 billion cubic meters).

According to Chernyshov, the company plans to supply the heating season exclusively with Ukrainian gas, thanks to a 7% increase in production compared to the previous year.

"According to our calculations, if the situation does not worsen, we will completely get through the heating season at the expense of our own resource. Therefore, we do not plan to use that volume in storage (gas belonging to foreign companies): storage service is our business, which we provide to international customers, European traders. And it's very good that it exists. This year we managed to increase these volumes to 2 billion cubic meters, which is a plus. This is the economy, our profit. And also technical additional pressures in the storages," he said.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, the Ministry of Energy predicts that by the beginning of winter, the volume of European traders' gas in Ukrainian underground storage facilities will increase to 3 billion cubic meters.

Chernyshov expects Ukraine's gas reserves in UGS to be lower in November compared to last year

The Cabinet of Ministers plans to create gas reserves in UGS at the level of 14.7 billion cubic meters at the beginning of the autumn-winter season.