Russia analyzing how to avoid Ukrainian gas storage facilities in shipping gas to Europe

Russia is analyzing how to avoid Ukrainian underground gas storage facilities in shipping gas to Europe, Russian Deputy Energy Minister Anatoly Yanovsky told journalists.

Large underground gas storage facilities that were built in the Soviet era in western Ukraine are traditionally used to support gas shipments to Europe, while transit gas is used by Ukraine's industrial east. This brings about the necessity to create large gas reserves at Ukrainian reservoirs by winter to guarantee uninterrupted transit by that time.

"Gazprom is making every effort to guarantee uninterrupted gas shipments to Europe and there is the possibility to inject gas in the underground storage facilities of other counties, and not at Ukraine's reservoirs," Yanovsky said.

"We can use the Yamal-Europe pipeline [and] Nord Stream [pipeline] at full capacity. With consideration given to OPOL, shipments could total 15 billion cubic meters per year, which is comparable to the volume at Ukraine's underground storage facilities," he added.

Ukraine's national oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy did not disclose the size of reserves at its storage facilities during May 2 talks in Warsaw, Yanovsky said, adding that the Naftogaz's position was "give us the maximum [amount of] gas at the system's inlet, and we ourselves will decide how much to take and how much to transit."

Naftogaz Ukrainy began weekly disclosure of data on the movement of reserves at its reservoirs last week.