Photo from UNIAN
Such a serious debt jeopardizes the launch of a new heating season in autumn.
LLC Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine (GTSOU) says it has filed lawsuits against seven regional gas distribution companies to recover multimillion-dollar debts for gas.
"In particular, the lawsuits were filed against major debtors: Donetskoblgaz, Luhanskgaz, Kirovohradgaz, Ternopilmiskgaz, Melitopolgaz, Umangaz, and Khersongaz," the GTSOU's press service said on its website on May 18.
In total, Ukrainian gas market operators in January-April 2020 accumulated UAH 1.336 billion (US$50.3 million) in debt for "negative imbalances" (i.e. amounts of consumed gas that are higher than amounts bought from the supplier) before the Ukrainian GTS operator, including UAH 1.31 billion (US$49.3 million), which accounted for 85%, owed by regional gas distribution companies.
Payments for the negative imbalances have accounted for a mere 24% since the beginning of the year. However, the GTS Operator completely fulfills its obligations to market participants, having fully paid them the positive imbalances for January-March 2020.
"The GTSOU regularly informs about the status of settlements on imbalances (in January, February, and March). But due to inaction of the debtor companies' management, the situation becomes more critical every month and the risks of disruption to the independent GTS operator's stable work are growing. Such a serious debt jeopardizes the launch of a new heating season in the autumn of 2020," it said.
As UNIAN reported earlier, on January 1, 2020, the functions of the operator of the country's trunk gas pipelines were transferred from state-owned Ukrtransgaz to LLC Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine, which is subject to state-owned Magistralni Gazoprovody Ukrainy managed by Ukraine's Finance Ministry.
In 2019, gas market participants' debt owed to Ukrtransgaz for negative imbalances totaled UAH 44.048 billion (US$1.7 billion).