A senior Ukrainian official said Wednesday that Russia has cut the contracted volume of natural gas shipments to the East European nation as bitter cold caused soaring domestic demand in Russia, according to Xinhua.
"Extremely cold weather boosted demand for gas in Russia. Thus, against the contracted daily level of 510 cubic meters of gas, Ukraine gets 460 million cubic meters of gas from Russia," Energy and Coal Industry Minister Yuriy Boyko told reporters.
Boyko said Ukraine took emergency measures to deal with gas shortages, including withdrawing fuel from storage sites to meet domestic demand and to supply gas to European consumers.
Ukraine increased gas pumping from storage by 20 million cubic meters of gas per day, Boyko said, adding that it allowed increased supplies to Europe.
Ukraine has reserves of about 15.7 billion cubic meters of gas.
