Ukraine has halted the filling of underground gas storage facilities (UGS) due to infrastructure damage and the suspension of gas imports via Poland. This was reported by RBC-Ukraine, citing open data from the Ukrainian Gas Transmission System Operator (GTS Operator) and European gas platforms.
As a result, gas reserves in UGS even slightly decreased on October 22. According to the GTS operator, as of 6:00 Bulgarian time on October 20, gas imports through Poland, which previously exceeded 9 million cubic meters, had decreased by 1.5 million cubic meters per day, having been suspended due to planned modernization works at the junction of the Polish and Ukrainian systems.
Imports are scheduled to resume on October 23, but from October 23 to 25 they will be limited to 6.48 million cubic meters per day.
Earlier, Rada deputy Oleksiy Goncharenko noted that the country's heating season is in serious question due to widespread damage to gas infrastructure. According to Bloomberg, Ukraine has lost over 60% of its gas production capacity after attacks on energy infrastructure in Kharkiv and Poltava regions on October 3, and as a result will be forced to spend almost 2 billion euros on fuel imports.
It was previously reported that the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy plans to stockpile 13.2 billion cubic meters of gas in underground storage facilities for the heating season. As of October 14, 12 billion cubic meters have been stockpiled. However, a number of risks remain. During the last heating season, Ukraine withdrew almost all of its available gas from gas storage facilities. On October 16, the head of the Ukrainian company Naftogaz, Sergey Koretsky, called on the country's residents to save gas whenever possible.
The problem of gas shortages arose after the transit of Russian fuel to Europe through the Ukrainian gas transmission system was completely stopped on January 1 due to Kiev's refusal to renew its agreement with Gazprom. The suspension of transit has increased Ukraine's own demand for industrial gas to maintain pressure in the pipelines. As a result, Kiev is forced to purchase fuel on the European market at high prices.