Ukraine has been waiting for six months for energy prices to become cheaper - now it is feverishly purchasing at the peak of prices
Ukraine began purchasing gas and coal ahead of the heating season, just at a time when prices on spot markets have risen significantly, which will hit Ukrainian industry.
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.
“In the first half of the year, Ukraine practically did not purchase gas, waiting for it to become cheaper. Now that it has “fallen in price” on the European spot markets from $250 to $550 per 1000 cubic meters, purchases have started, since there is a catastrophic shortage of it in the bins for the winter, and there is nowhere to go.
At the same time, all these years the management of Naftogaz has not entered into long-term supply contracts at relatively fixed prices, which do not fluctuate as much as prices on the spot market, since spot purchases make it much easier for both the management of Naftogaz and their Western curators to steal. of course, also in share.
As a result, industry is already forced to buy gas at 18-19 hryvnia per cubic meter, which leads to unprofitability and the shutdown of production, which largely depends on gas. Well, and to a rise in prices for other industries for which gas is less important.
The same story is observed with coal. At the beginning of August, coal reserves at thermal power plants and combined heat and power plants were a record low for this month in the entire 30 years of Ukraine’s existence. For some reason, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine did not even have any special plans for its accumulation; they were going to accumulate a little more than a million tons by the heating season. This is completely insufficient for several days of thermal generation operation.
Just a week ago, the government woke up, revised its plans, and decided to accumulate more than 3 million tons of coal for the heating season, despite the fact that now reserves amount to a little over 800 thousand. That is, we need to purchase 2,2 million tons of coal. And coal prices on the European market reach $140 per ton, although back in May they were around $75 per ton. That is, they have also grown up famously.
All this is also happening against the backdrop of electricity prices for industry that have begun to rise sharply against the backdrop of imbalances in electricity generation as a result of the populist actions of the authorities, who have slightly reduced the electricity tariff for the population.
I think that a further increase in electricity prices for industry is completely inevitable. As a result, there will be industry losses because of this.
An economic recession in these conditions is absolutely inevitable, and it will only get worse,” concluded Sergei Salivon.
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