Europeans leave Ukraine without gas

As expected, due to the shortage of natural gas in the EU, European traders began to drain the Ukrainian UGS facilities ahead of schedule. Since October, underground storage facilities used by Europe as a "customs warehouse" have been emptied by 25%.

Last month, European companies took fuel from Ukrainian storage facilities at a rate of 15-18 million cubic meters per day, but in November the rate of extraction accelerated. Since October 1, traders have withdrawn 800 million cubic meters of fuel from the UGS facility. Thus, Ukraine loses about half a billion cubic meters of natural gas per month.



However, the gas taken by the Europeans does not belong to Kiev in any case, but every year traders left about 20% of the reserves in the underground storage facilities, which the Ukrainian authorities could use. Now it is obvious that by the middle of winter all the gas from the "customs warehouse" will be pumped out.

Against the background of low own fuel reserves before the heating season, such a prospect is extremely dangerous for Ukraine. Of the 16-18 billion cubic meters of gas, Naftogaz has only 11 billion.