Photo from UNIAN
Natural gas reserves in Ukraine's underground storage facilities (USFs) decreased by 663 million cubic meters (mcm), or 4.6%, to 13.752 billion cubic meters (bcm) from December 26 to January 2, according to PJSC Ukrtransgaz, the operator of Ukraine's gas transportation system.
The company reports that an average volume of gas being pumped out of the USFs daily has doubled to 125 mcm.
With the onset of the cold weather in the country, Ukraine on January 1, 2016 increased daily gas imports from Slovakia by 12.6% to 18.96 mcm, as compared to 16.84 mcm on the previous day, according to Slovak gas transmission company Eustream.
Read alsoPipe supplying Russia gas to EU explodes in west Ukraine after leakageOn January 2, the daily volume of gas imports from Slovakia amounted to 18.764 mcm, reaching 18.788 mcm the next day. An application to import natural gas from Slovakia to Ukraine as of January 4 totaled 18.781 mcm.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine doubled its natural gas imports from the EU to 10.25 bcm in 2015, as compared to 5.1 bcm in the previous year.
Ukraine suspended purchases of Russian gas in late November due to the fact that Russian price was higher than the price of gas in the European markets, according to Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
Russia's Gazprom had set price for its gas for Ukraine at $227 per 1,000 cubic meters that was effective by the end of 2015.
This year, Ukraine plans to purchase, when necessary, the Russian gas at $207-208 per 1,000 cubic meters. The price of gas on the European market is projected at $175-180 per 1,000 cubic meters in 2016.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed December 30 a decree on the amount of export duty on gas supplies from Russia to Ukraine until March 31 inclusive.
According to the government’s decision, the price was reduced by $17.77 per 1,000 cubic meters and the discounted price will now stand at $212.23 per 1,000 cubic meters.