Russia’s gas giant Gazprom has launched gas supplies to Ukraine, the company’s CEO Alexey Miller said on Monday, as cited by TASS.”Today at 10 am Gazprom launched gas supplies to Ukraine”, he said.
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On September 25, the European Union, Ukraine and Russian Federation signed a temporary agreement to ensure the continuation of gas supply during the winter season.
On Friday, Gazprom said that Ukraine has requested 2 billion cubic metres of gas for October.
Construction or preliminary work has begun on three pipelines created to flow natural gas supplies from Azerbaijan to consumers in Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece and Italy, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
As the nations fall out over the conflict in Syria, Moscow-based Gazprom PJSC, the world’s largest gas producer, said last week it would cut the capacity of a planned link to Turkey and on to Europe by 50 percent.
“This is a resumption of cooperation”, Yury Korolchuk, an analyst with the Institute of Energy Strategies in Kiev, told AFP. Turkey and Italy have contracts to receive 0.6 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) and 0.8 Bcf/d of of natural gas, respectively, while Greece and Bulgaria each are contracted to take 0.1 Bcf/d.
“In 20 to 30 days, the gas volumes in the storage facilities will be significantly increased”.
But these reserves could not be enough if the winter is harsh, they warned.
Those interruptions have not only been problematic for Ukraine, where winter temperatures can drop to -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit), but also for Europe, which relies on Gazprom for about a third of its energy needs.
Moscow hiked the price it charges Ukraine following last year’s ouster of Kremlin (LSE: 0Q8D.L – news) -backed leader Viktor Yanukovych which unleashed a pro-Russian insurgency in the east of the ex-Soviet country.
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With Russian Federation slipping into recession on the back of lower oil prices and Western sanctions over the insurgency in eastern Ukraine, the economy ministry said Gazprom could produce 414 billion cubic metres of gas this year, an all-time low due to weak demand, among other reasons.
