LLC Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine (GTSOU) has said transit shipments of natural gas through the country's gas transmission system in January-August 2020 shrank by 42% year-over-year (y-o-y), to 34.8 billion cubic meters (bcm).
Read alsoUkraine ready to handle gas transit from Slovakia to Poland if Russia halts Yamal flow – GTS operatorOver the period under review, 23.9 bcm was transported to Slovakia, 5.9 bcm to Hungary, 2.6 bcm to Poland, 1.87 bcm to Moldova, and 0.46 bcm to Romania, the company said on its website on September 2.
Why Ukraine is reducing gas transit
The decrease in transit along the southern route of Ukraine's GTS was due to the launch in January 2020 of the TurkStream gas pipeline, which transports gas from Russia to Turkey and afterwards to the countries of the Balkan Peninsula, the report said.
Background
- 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.
- On December 30, 2019, Ukraine and Russia signed a new gas transit contract for a period of five years, obliging Russia's Gazprom to pump a minimum of 65 billion bcm of gas via Ukraine in the first year and 40 bcm annually in the next four years. The parties may extend the contract for another ten years.
- TurkStream is a nearly 1,000 km-long gas pipeline bypassing Ukraine, laid along the bottom of the Black Sea from Russia's Krasnodar Territory to Turkey.
- On January 8, 2020, Presidents of Russia and Turkey Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the official launch of the TurkStream gas pipeline.