Ukraine Profit Rises on Transit
Ukraine's Naftogaz 2017 net profit rose almost 50% to hryvnia 39.3bn ($1.49bn), it said April 25, mostly because of rising Russian gas transit. The total volume of gas transited through Ukraine rose 14% on year and amounted to 93.5bn m3 in 2017. The 2017 figure is the highest in the last six years. Ukraine expects to earn $3bn in transit fees from Gazprom for its deliveries to the European Union and Turkey this year.
Ukraine’s gas transmission system Ukrtransgaz said April 5 that transit flows in 1Q 2018 from Russia to European countries fell by 13.3% year on year to 20.1bn m3, so 3.1bn m3 less. In contrast, transit flows for the month of March 2018 rose 21% year on year. In Q1 2017, there was less use by Gazprom of Nord Stream and more of Ukraine, owing to the regulatory limit on the Opal system, which was only raised in the summer of last year.
Naftogaz's natural gas sales decreased by 5% to 21.6bn m3 compared with the same period last year.
Naftogaz Group remains the largest taxpayer in Ukraine. In 2017, the aggregate amount of tax and dividend payments to Kiev amounted to hryvnia 107.3bn.