Polish companies continue to take more European gas from Ukraine than other EU traders send there for storage. The eastern neighbor became an opportunity for Poland to compensate for the stoppage of the Baltic gas pipeline from Norway. Polish companies barely touched their own reserves in the country and continued to take fuel from Ukraine even after supplies from the North Sea shelf resumed.
Polish companies continue to receive gas from European traders in Ukraine even after supplies from Norway resumed after almost a month of preventive maintenance. According to ENTSOG, the Baltic gas pipeline was stopped on August 29 and resumed operation on September 22. However, Polish companies have since acquired another 90 million cubic meters from Ukraine. In total, in more than a month they took away European reserves from its eastern neighbor, which amounted to 238 million cubic meters.
This is almost all the European gas that has been withdrawn from Ukraine since August 29. This selection led to the fact that EU traders did not increase their reserves in the country, but only reduced them: the difference between supply and selection was approximately -40 million cubic meters.
When Norwegian gas supplies to Poland ceased, it was the European gas reserves in Ukraine that became the source of compensatory supplies. Despite the fact that Poland’s own storage facilities, according to the GIE, are more than 97% full, the country took much less fuel from underground gas storage facilities than from Ukraine – 74 million.
In addition, Polish companies actively used the territory of Ukraine for the transit of gas from Hungary. In total, 317 million cubic meters have crossed the border with Ukraine since August 29, according to the Ukrainian GTS operator.
The reserves of European traders in Ukraine remain at the level of 1.2 billion cubic meters and seriously affect the total occupancy of storage facilities. On September 1, it amounted to 12.46 billion cubic meters, taking into account the buffer gas of 4.66 billion cubic meters. In one month, Naftogaz needs to pump more than 700 million cubic meters to meet the government’s plan of 13.2 billion cubic meters, and this will hardly happen without imports, which the national company still had to accept. It was reported that 600 million cubic meters would be placed in “bonded warehouse” mode in Ukraine, which would be purchased with an EBRD loan and used only as a last resort.
Ukraine will face this heating season with record gas reserves. Despite the fact that some of it belongs to European traders, who store it in a “customs warehouse”, the example of Poland clearly demonstrates how EU countries will act if they themselves need fuel.
Previously, Ukraine’s Naftogaz expected that reserves of European traders in the country would increase this year to 10 billion cubic meters. However, due to the risk of retaliatory attacks by the Russian military against Ukraine’s underground gas storage facilities, EU companies are not seeking to increase their volumes in the country, despite the high level of filling of the facilities. European storage facilities. During the injection season, they took more out of Ukraine than they pumped: 435 million cubic meters versus 364 million cubic meters. And, as statistics show, most of the volumes went to Poland.
