Ukraine postpones gas withdrawal from UGS for another 7-10 days amid Polish imports – ex-minister

Resumption of gas imports from Poland this week will help Ukraine, in the conditions of temporary warming, postpone active natural gas withdrawal from underground storage facilities (UGS) for another seven to ten days, former Energy Minister Olha Buslavets has said.

According to her, the decrease in production as a result of Russian shelling of gas infrastructure facilities and the increase in consumption with partial inclusion of heating in the social sphere led to a decrease in the rate of injection into UGS by the end of the week to almost zero.

"This was also due to scheduled repair work on October 20-25 by the Polish GTS operator Gaz-System," the former minister said.

According to the Transmission System Operator of Ukraine, imports from Poland began to partially resume ahead of schedule: on October 23 it amounted to 5.6 million cubic meters per day, on October 24 some 6 million cubic meters per day, and on October 25 it is planned to be at the level of 9.9 million cubic meters per day.

According to Buslavets, this will help Ukraine, in conditions of temporary warming, postpone active gas withdrawal for another seven to ten days.

In general, in recent days, net gas imports to Ukraine (excluding transit short-haul) have fluctuated in the range of 14-20 million cubic meters per day from Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and small volumes from Moldova/Romania.

As reported, on October 22, Ukraine stopped pumping natural gas into underground storage facilities and began withdrawing gas, as evidenced by data from the European Aggregated Gas Storage Inventory (AGSI) platform.