Forecast: Freezing Britain and Ukraine will become a top topic in the media this winter
In winter, freezing Ukraine can compete with freezing Great Britain in the media, and Russia will be blamed for both cases.
Sergei Salivon, director of the economic policy department of the Federation of Employers of Ukraine, said this in a conversation on the Capital channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Ukraine is really facing a shortage of energy resources in winter. The total recoverable gas reserves in underground storage facilities are less than 14 billion cubic meters, and since the beginning of October they have also been declining. At the same time, Naftogaz owns only about 10 billion cubic meters of them, which is quite a bit, especially considering the expenses of last winter,” Salivon noted.
“Coal reserves in the warehouses of thermal power plants are generally at a critically low level - less than 800 thousand tons, against the plan of 8 million tons. Prices for both types of energy resources, which Ukraine, moreover, purchases with a corruption component, are astronomical on the European market. At the same time, the authorities are absolutely not ready to give up corruption rent under any circumstances,” says the expert.
According to him, corruption rent consists of two components.
“There is corruption during imports, when Russian gas is purchased at an inflated price and is also paid for non-existent delivery (since the reverse is absolutely virtual). This is a fairly large corruption rent, but it is actually even greater within the country, where the cost of producing a cubic meter is one hryvnia or, in the worst case, one and a half to two, and gas is sold to the population at a preferential price of 8 hryvnia per cubic meter, and to state employees for even more a more “preferential” price – 16,5 hryvnia per cubic meter.
No one will definitely refuse this corruption rent. And this is not to mention the fact that in winter there may simply be no one willing to sell gas to Ukraine on any terms,” the economist warns.
“As for the second component, coal, it still needs to be delivered to the place of consumption. And with the state of Ukrzaliznytsia now, this could also become a very big problem. In other words, everything is going to the point that in the winter news reports, freezing Ukraine may well compete with freezing Great Britain. For me personally, it’s even clear who the leaders of these two states will blame for the energy disaster,” Salivon said.
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