The Ukrainian GTS is used for less than a third of the total capacity. Photo: © Lviv District State Administration
The transit of natural gas through the gas transmission system (GTS) of Ukraine in January—September 2021 was 32.7 billion cubic meters, and that is 17.2% less than in the same period in 2020 (39.5 billion cubic meters). This is stated in the message of the Ukrainian GTS Operator.
"GTSOU is offering about 80 million cubic meters per day of additional capacities for the transit of gas to Europe, but the results of the auctions demonstrate that Gazprom is not interested in increasing the supplies. For September and October, not even the guaranteed 15 million cubic meters of additional capacity were booked, not to mention interruptible ones," Sergiy Makogon, Chairman of the Operator, noted.
According to him, GTSOU remains a reliable partner of the EU and will offer the necessary transit capacity throughout the 2021-2022 gas year.
However, as noted by Makogon, the Ukrainian GTS is used by less than a third of the total transit capacity. These spare capacities are twice as much as the capacity of Nord Stream 2 and can be used to increase gas supplies to the EU.
Context. Transit of natural gas through the Ukrainian gas transportation system in 2020 amounted to 55.8 billion cubic meters, which is 37.7% less than in 2019 (89.6 billion cubic meters). The average daily transit volume for the current year is 153 million cubic meters compared to booked 178 million cubic meters.
As reported, Gazprom stopped the transit of gas to Hungary through Ukraine on the morning of October 1. According to the GTS Operator of Ukraine, this happened even despite the fact that the Ukrainian capacities in the Hungarian direction were contracted until September 30, 2022 in the amount of more than 24.5 million cubic meters per day.