Public joint-stock company Ukrtransgaz, the operator of the Ukrainian gas transport system, has said that the company is ready to accept and process applications of Ukrainian private companies which plan to supply natural gas to Ukrainian consumers via the Hungarian gas transport system in 2014.
“The applications are to contain information in line with the
requirements of the access to the united gas transport system,” reads a
report of the company issued on Tuesday, Aug. 5.
The procedure for access and joining to the united gas transport
system of Ukraine approved by NCER resolution No. 420 of April 19, 2012
foresees that if there is no enough free capacity of the trunk pipelines
to satisfy all the applications on the transportation of gas suppliers
of gas to households and heat supply companies are of top-priority and
then gas is sold to natural gas market players which order the services
for the longer period of time.
All other things constant the applications are satisfied proportionally to the declared volumes of gas.
As reported, according to the monitoring of FGSZ Ltd., the operator
of the Hungarian gas transport system, in July 2014 Ukraine imported
around 3.3 million cubic meters of gas a day (101 million cubic meters)
via Hungary, while the largest possible capacity of accepting gas from
Hungary at the Beregdaroc gas metering station today totals up to 16
million cubic meters of gas a day.
Earlier Head of national joint-stock company Naftogaz Ukrainy Andriy
Kobolev said that the reduction of imports of natural gas by Ukraine
from Europe in July is linked to the fact that Hungary pumped gas to its
underground storage facilities.
According to Gas Storage Europe (GSE), as of early August Hungary has
the smallest volume of gas in its underground storage facilities
compared to other European countries – 46 percent of the whole capacity (2.865
out of 6.17 billion cubic meters). For example, underground storage
facilities in Germany are filled by 83 percent (18.062 out of 21.801 billion
cubic meters), Italy – by 86 percent (14.285 out of 16.558 billion cubic
meters), France – by 72 percent (8.66 out of 11.956 billion cubic meters),
Slovakia – by 87 percent (2.607 out of 2.992 billion cubic meters) and Poland –
by 90 percent (2.22 out of 2.473 billion cubic meters).
Ukraine from November 2012 started importing natural gas from Germany
via Poland under a contract with Germany’s RWE Supply & Trading.
From April 2013, the country started supplies from Hungary.
From January 2014, supplies from Europe were suspended when Naftogaz
Ukrainy and Russia’s Gazprom agreed on the price of Russian gas of
$268.50 per 1,000 cubic meters, but from April 2014, the agreement was
not prolonged.
From April 15, 2014, Ukraine resumed the reverse gas supplies from
Europe. In April-June 2014, around 600 million cubic meters of gas was
imported from Poland and Hungary, including around 330 million cubic
meters in June and around 200 million cubic meters in May.
In 2013, Ukraine imported 2,132 billion cubic meters of gas from Europe.
