You're reading: Ukraine halves Russian gas imports in Jan-Feb

Kyiv, April 23 - Ukraine cut imports of Russian natural gas by half year-on-year in January-February 2012 to 6.173 billion cubic meters (bcm), the State Statistics Service has reported.

Russian gas imports amounted to $2.573 billion in the two-month period, or 21.1% less year-on-year.

This significant drop in imports is connected with national oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy’s purchase of large amounts of gas at the beginning of 2011 in order to execute the Stockholm Arbitration Court’s decision to return 12.1 bcm of gas to Swiss RosUkrEnergo. The reduction is also related to Ukraine’s intentions to lower its purchases due to high prices.

The average price of gas imported into Ukraine was $416.8 per 1,000 cu m in January-February, compared to $263.1 during the same period last year.

Ukraine imported no natural gas from Central Asia or other countries in the two-month period.

According to Naftogaz data, the state-owned holding imported $808-million worth of natural gas in January, and $1.3-billion worth in February. Therefore, it imported around $2.1 billion of gas in the first two months of 2012, which is less than the data for Ukrainian gas imports publicized by State Statistics Service. This indicates that gas was also imported by Ukrainian businessman Dmytro Firtash’s company OstChem Holding Limited, which supplied Central Asian gas to Ukraine in 2011.

At the end of January, Firtash’s press service distributed information that OstChem would supply 8 bcm of gas to meet the needs of the Ukrainian chemistry industry and of Firtash’s nitrogen enterprises in 2012. However, the press service did not disclose additional information about the sources of this gas.

Last year, Ukraine boosted natural gas imports 22.4% to 44.801 bcm, according to State Statistics Service’s data. In monetary terms, gas imports jumped 49.5% to $14.046 billion.

The country imported 40.002 bcm of Russian gas for $12.361 billion in 2011. It imported 4.8 bcm of gas from Central Asia for $1.685 billion.

Besides Naftogaz, Firtash’s chemical enterprises imported Central Asian gas through his company OstChem Holding Ltd. in 2011.