Ukraine's energy crisis response plan in action: Switching from natural gas to boiler oil

Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers has enacted its energy crisis response action plan and instructed power generating companies to switch from natural gas to boiler oil.

"The national action plan was enacted by official instructions of the crisis committee ... The action plan, starting from today, provides for the transfer of generating companies from natural gas to boiler oil. This will let us save about 15-20 million cubic meters of gas per day," Ukrainian Energy and Coal Minister Ihor Nasalyk announced in parliament on Friday, March 2.

Read alsoUkraine mulls gas consumption cuts in face of Gazprom's latest moveThe action plan, which has been introduced due to Russian gas giant Gazprom's refusal to supply gas to Ukraine as of March 1, 2018, will be in effect for five days so far, Nasalyk said.

"To enact this decision, the Energy and Coal Industry Ministry informed the Secretariat of the EU that in the next five days – the period while the action plan will be in effect – we'll use boiler oil," he added.

The Ukrainian side also stresses that Gazprom has failed to maintain sufficient gas pressure under the contract at the entry point for gas from Russia.

Nasalyk also noted that, in addition to instructing the educational institutions to suspend work until March 6 inclusively, the Cabinet also asked industrial enterprises to review their production plans to consume less natural gas. "The problem remains until March 5-6, then we will work according to the [energy] balance, as the action plan will help us solve the problems and the [energy] system will work in a routine mode," the minister said.

As UNIAN reported earlier, NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine proposed a cap on gas consumption on March 3-4 due to the freezing temperatures across Ukraine and Gazprom's refusal to supply gas to Ukraine as of March 1, 2018, despite an advance payment. "There is an action plan approved by the Energy and Coal Industry Ministry on November 2, 2015. The plan provides for the introduction of a special gas consumption regime, where enterprises that have alternative fuels switch to such alternative types, and work with thermal generation companies to reduce gas consumption by approximately 5-10%," CEO of Naftogaz Andriy Kobolyev said at a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine on March 1. "We believe that these measures should be sufficient in order not to create a gas deficit in the grid and to prevent the situation to which, in our opinion, Gazprom is pushing us – that is, to take advantage of transit gas flows."