Moscow - The nomination for the transit of Russian gas via Ukraine and Slovakia by the Uzhgorod corridor, which had been steadily more than 60 million cubic meters (mcm) a day since the beginning of September, fell 17 percent to 49.7 mcm for Monday.
Slovakia’s gas transport operator, Eustream, said the Monday nomination could be 21.5 persent below the highest so far for the month, which was 63.25 million cubic meters on September 3.
Slovakia is one of the main transit corridors for Russian gas to the EU. Since the beginning of September, Eustream has been supplying gas in reverse mode to Ukraine. Direct supplies of Russian gas to Ukraine came to a halt in June due to $5.3 billion in debt for gas.
Simultaneously with the launch of reveres supplies from Slovakia, exports of Russian gas to countries neighboring Ukraine have fallen to their minimal contractual levels. In Moscow, this is being attributed to the fact there is not enough gas to meet all requests as gas continues to be pumped into underground storage facilities in Russia itself.
But the reduction in Russian gas supplies via Slovakia has not affected reverse supply volumes, which have been a steady 26 mcm or thereabouts. The nomination for September 15 was 26.36 mcm.
Russia’s Gazprom is producing almost 950 mcm of gas a day, which is 305 mcm less than last year and nearly 750 mcm below peak production capacity.
