Norway has halted a significant part of gas production for annual maintenance, and Poland has been left without supplies via the Baltic gas pipeline. Polish companies are compensating for most of the losses from European gas reserves in Ukraine or by transiting it through the country.
In September, Poland was short of gas, and the main source of compensating volumes were reserves from European traders in Ukraine. Warsaw and kyiv have repeatedly announced plans to cooperate on gas supplies to Ukraine via Poland, but so far, because of Poland, reserves in Ukrainian storage facilities are declining.
Preventive maintenance of oil and gas production facilities in Norway began on August 29, and the country’s exports fell by almost half. According to the operator Gassco, the supply of gas via the Baltic gas pipeline from the North Sea via Denmark to Poland has completely stopped. This is confirmed by ENTSOG data on the gas exit point on the Baltic gas pipeline from Denmark.
As a result, Poland lost its stable supply of 23.1 million cubic meters per day and was forced to purchase fuel from other sources. The largest was Ukraine, where European traders stockpile reserves.
According to the Ukrainian GTS operator, since August 30, Poland has received 117 million cubic meters of gas stored there under the “customs warehouse” regime, and together with the gas transited through Ukraine – 170 million cubic meters.
This is the largest European gas transfer from Ukraine to Poland. In August, for example, it amounted to less than 5 million cubic metres.
Polish companies have enough alternative options to obtain gas. However, supplies from the LNG terminal in the Baltic States are not carried out and from the Swinoujscie terminal have not changed. And imports from Germany increased by 42 million cubic meters in 18 days. Poland also took less than 25 million cubic meters from storage facilities.
Norwegian operator Gassco reports that preventive maintenance at the Karsto processing facility, through which Poland receives gas, will last until September 20. So far, the entire capacity of 97 million cubic meters per day is missing.
The purchase of European gas from Ukrainian storage facilities is not a big deal, but it is a nuisance for Ukraine. Traders’ reserves continue to decline, despite Naftogaz’s plans to increase them to 10 billion cubic meters. Due to the risk of Russian retaliation against underground gas deposits, gas volumes from European companies in this injection season not only did not increase, but decreased by 22 million cubic meters. Of the 3 billion cubic meters of reserves built up by 2023, 1.25 billion cubic meters remain.
Despite the fact that the total reserves of Ukraine’s underground gas deposits amounted to 12 billion cubic meters on September 15, Naftogaz does not have time to fulfill the government’s plan of 13.5 billion cubic meters for the heating season, which traditionally begins in October.
As reported EADaily In this situation, the Ukrainian national company itself will act as a European trader. Naftogaz will purchase 600 million cubic meters with EBRD loan funds. However, as the national company claims, this will not be considered an import, since the volumes will be placed in Ukrainian storage facilities in “customs warehouse” mode and will be used only in emergency situations. This allows the head of Naftogaz of Ukraine to Alexei Chernyshev declare that Ukraine will complete the season using only domestically produced gas.
