The Ukrainian side has notified Gazprom that it is no longer responsible for the gas transit through the territories occupied by Russia, Yuriy Vitrenko, Chairman of the Board of Naftogaz of Ukraine, said.
"Currently it is about 1/3 of the total transit volume. Gazprom can move this volume to another interconnection point with Ukraine," he wrote on Twitter.
Earlier, Gas TSO of Ukraine reported the occurrence of force majeure, which makes it impossible to further transport gas through the GMS "Sokhranivka" and the border compressor station (CS) "Novopskov," which are located in the occupied territories.
Considering the above, GTSOU informed Gazprom that from 07 a.m. on May 11, to fulfill its transit obligations to European partners in full and following the terms of the agreement, it is possible to temporarily transfer unavailable capacity from the "Sokhranivka" physical interconnection point to the "Sudzha" physical interconnection point located in the territory controlled by Ukraine.
Earlier, the GTSOU repeatedly informed Gazprom about threats to transit over the actions of the occupying forces controlled by Russia, and demanded to stop interference in the operation of facilities, but these appeals were ignored.
Gazprom rejected the grounds for Kyiv's announcement of force majeure in terms of transit and stated that it was impossible to redirect volumes.
In turn, the GTSOU reported that three 1 400 mm diameter gas pipelines – Yelets-Kremenchuk-Kryvyi Rih, Progress and Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhhorod – with a total technical transit capacity of 244 million cubic meters per day pass through the GMS Sudzha point. These volumes are more than twice as much as the total transit flow through the Ukrainian GTS under current contractual obligations (109.6 million cubic meters per day).
Moreover, a transfer of capacity from Sokhranivka to Sudzha already took place from October 12 to 25, 2020, due to scheduled repairs. At that time, gas transit through the Sudzha entry point was 165.1 million cubic meters per day.
Therefore, the allegations about the impossibility of transferring flows from Sokhranivka to Sudzha point do not correspond to reality.
Naftogaz of Ukraine expects Gazprom to continue paying for the contractual volume of gas transit regardless of its decision, Vitrenko stated. He recalled that the contract has a provision "pump or pay".
Vitrenko noted that if there is no payment, then there must be a new arbitration. "How about doing it again?" — the Chairman of Naftogaz summed up, hinting at winning in 2018 in the Stockholm Arbitration against Gazprom.
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