Russian Transits via Ukraine Tumble
Gazprom reduced gas deliveries through Ukraine to the European Union by 9.2% in the first four months this year to 27.7bn m3, Ukraine's gas transmission operator Ukrtransgaz said May 3.
The decline comes despite early indications that Gazprom has increased exports to the EU so far this year, particularly during the cold weather of late February 2018 and the month of March. The lifting of restrictions on Gazprom's use of capacity in the Opal onshore pipeline has enabled the Russian giant to step up flows via Nord Stream to western Europe, relative to its use during the first few months of 2017.
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However Ukrtransgaz said that Russian transit flows during the month of April 2018 rose by 3.7% year on year to 7.6bn m3.
Ukraine withdrew 7.3bn m3 gas from its underground gas storage facilities in January-April 2018, up 78% year on year it added; the 7.9bn m3 in storage as at April 30 was 6% less than 12 months earlier.
Gas imports to Ukraine from the west since the start of 2018 halved year on year to 2.2bn m3. This was due to Ukraine's significant gas stocks built up by state-owned Naftogaz and other companies earlier this winter. The largest source of gas imports from the west was Slovakia 1.4bn m3 (-64% year on year), followed by Hungary 0.5bn m3 (+ 25%) and Poland 0.3bn m3 (-25%).
Gas producers in Ukraine inputted 6.8bn m3 into the Ukrtransgaz system during January-April 2018, almost the same as in the first four months of last year.