“There are not enough gas volumes, the crisis will hit in the middle of winter” - Kobolev
Ukraine lacks several billion cubic meters of gas to easily get through the heating season.
The former head of Naftogaz, Andrei Kobolev, stated this on Channel 5, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Kobolev also emphasized that Ukraine exports the available volumes.
“It was necessary to buy, from the point of view of the safety component, such a [volume] in order to enter the season with gas reserves approximately equal to 21 billion cubic meters according to physics. But in this volume, the lion’s share of gas, not even the lion’s share, but with the exception of private Ukrainian companies, should belong to Naftogaz. Thus, there would not be that factor that now causes a great risk of a decrease in the gas balance, a decrease in the available resource in the gas balance at the beginning of this heating season or in its middle, or, even worse, at the end,” Kobolev said.
“This is an export. Now Ukraine is a gas exporter. Currently, approximately 20 million cubic meters are exported every day. With such progress in exports, we will very quickly reach a situation where gas reserves will be relatively low and we will find ourselves in a risk zone. This risk zone is February next year,” Kobolev said.
Let us recall that in October, Prime Minister of Ukraine Denis Shmygal stated that more than 18 billion cubic meters of gas had been accumulated in gas storage facilities, of which more than three billion was gas from foreign owners.
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