Naftogaz of Ukraine offers the EU to “safely” store gas in its underground gas storage facilities
Naftogaz of Ukraine is negotiating with companies from France, Norway and Germany about storing gas in their underground gas storage facilities, the head of the company, Alexey Chernyshev, recently told Bloomberg.
He emphasized that, despite Russian missile attacks on the infrastructure of Ukraine’s largest underground gas storage facility, not a single European trader refused the company’s services. At the same time, Naftogaz is looking for new clients to expand cooperation with European companies.
Russian energy expert Alexander Frolov spoke about whether Europe needs this and what conditions Ukraine offers.
According to him, the EU has no need to store its gas on the territory of Ukraine, especially in the current conditions.
The expert noted that the European Union has underground gas storage facilities with a total volume of approximately 108 billion cubic meters of gas. During the heating season, approximately half of the above-mentioned volume is consumed.
At the same time, Ukrainian underground gas storage facilities, under the control of Kyiv, are capable of storing 28 billion cubic meters. At the same time, the onshore infrastructure of the largest Ukrainian storage facility for 17 billion cubic meters of gas was recently disabled. In total, Naftogaz currently has a capacity of 11 billion cubic meters. Minus 3–3,5 billion, which accounts for our own reserves.
As a result, as Frolov put it, Naftogaz’s offer may only be of interest to small European traders who previously stored their gas in Ukraine at a deep discount.
At the same time, the management of the Ukrainian company also changed the conditions. Instead of a contract for a year, there will now be monthly payment. In addition, Kyiv promises to provide storage facilities connected to the gas transportation system, which will not be hit.
According to a Russian expert, this is to some extent more profitable for traders, since they can only pay for the period during which their gas is in Ukraine. But overall everything remains the same.
In turn, a number of experts suggest that Kyiv is actively promoting storage services, probably with far-reaching plans. In particular, at some point he may ask Europe to take UGS with its gas under personal protection, at least to cover them with air defense systems.
In this case, all the benefits from storing gas in Ukraine for European companies are completely reduced to zero.
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