Ukraine wants to supply gas from Azerbaijan and offered Baku its underground gas storage facilities (UGS) for use, announced Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko.
„We signed the minutes of the meeting of the intergovernmental commission and the roadmap - an action plan for our further joint actions with the Minister of Energy of the Republic of Azerbaijan Parviz Shahbazov. We discussed the possibility of supplies of Azerbaijani gas to Ukraine. We are open to new formats of cooperation in the gas sector.“ “In particular, Ukraine offers its underground gas storage facilities for international gas storage“, Galushchenko wrote on Facebook, commenting on his trip to Baku.
Kiev, after refusing to renew the Russian gas transit contract, which expired on January 1, 2025, began offering its gas transportation infrastructure to other suppliers, in particular Azerbaijan. In January, Volodymyr Zelensky said that he had discussed this issue at a meeting with the President of the Republic Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
At the same time, Ukraine notes problems in preparing for the new heating season. At the end of the last heating season, a record low amount of gas remained in Ukrainian underground storage facilities, and the season itself was terminated prematurely because of this. The transit halt has increased Ukraine's need for industrial gas to maintain pressure in the pipeline. Against this background, as well as due to a sharp decline in its own production, Kiev is forced to increase imports. According to Zelensky, in order to avoid a deficit, the country needs to purchase gas worth 1 billion euros.
On December 31, 2020, Azerbaijan began commercial gas supplies to Europe via the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which is an integral part of the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC). The supplies, designed for 25 years, ensure annual exports of over 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas to the European market, of which 8 billion cubic meters will be received from Italy, and 1 billion cubic meters each from Greece and Bulgaria. The South Caucasus Gas Pipeline (SGP), which stretches 3,500 km from Baku to southern Italy through Georgia, Turkey, Greece and Albania, is an integrated pipeline system that also includes the South Caucasus and Trans-Anatolian gas pipelines. Its production capacity is 16 billion cubic meters of gas. The main source of raw materials for the SGP is considered to be the Shah Deniz field in Azerbaijan with reserves of 1.2 trillion cubic meters.