Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk said his country has accumulated 13.4 billion cubic metres of natural gas in underground storage facilities, news agencies reported.
“As of this morning, 13.4 billion cubic metres of gas are in Ukraine’s underground storage facilities,” he told a government meeting.
Ukraine needs to increase gas reserves in underground storage facilities to 19 billion cubic metres for the winter season.
Stocks in Ukrtransgaz’s underground storage facilities from April 1 to June 4 grew by 75.1% (from 5.412 billion cubic metres to 12.614 billion cubic metres).
Ukraine is a transit country for Russian gas exports to Europe, and Ukrainian crisis can hamper gas supplies to European consumers.
The throughput capacity of the Ukrainian gas transportation system consists of 288 billion cubic metres at the entrance and 178.5 billion cubic metres at the exit, including 142.5 billion cubic metres to European countries and 3.5 billion cubic metres to Moldova.
Ukraine’s gas transportation system consists of 72 compressor stations, 110 production shops and 1,451 gas distribution stations. The overall length of gas pipelines operated by the company is 38,600km, including 22,200km of trunk pipelines and 16,400km of extensions.
Andrei Kobolev, who heads Ukraine’s Naftogaz, said earlier that Ukraine did not have sufficient financing to pump into the underground storages the Russian natural gas at the price of $485.5.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/underground-gas-storage-increases