Once a transit country, Ukraine can already receive gas today through Germany and a number of Eastern European countries.
Director of the National Energy Security Fund Konstantin Simonov stated this on radio Vesti, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to the expert, with the construction of both branches of the Nord Stream, Germany has the opportunity to become a transit supplier of fuel to EU countries.
“In fact, Germany itself acts as an alternative to Ukraine, because Nord Stream has already been extended with gas pipelines, the same famous OPAL gas pipeline, around which many copies were broken, which goes to the east; the NEL gas pipeline, which is less talked about, but which goes further to Holland and today replaces the drop in production at the Groningen field with Russian gas. And today, under Nord Stream 2, construction of the EUGAL gas pipeline is slowly starting across Germany - this is a project being implemented by Gazkad, a subsidiary of Wintershall.
And, in fact, this once again suggests that for Germany the Nord Stream 2 project is important as an opportunity to increase direct gas supplies from Russia, and the EUGAL project is very important as an opportunity to transit gas further, to Eastern Europe, by the way. And first of all, to the Austrian Baumgarten, and further to Italy, to the border of Austria and Italy. And, by the way, theoretically, it’s laughable, but Ukraine can receive gas through Nord Stream already now and through Nord Stream 2 too,” Simonov said.
Now, according to the expert, Ukraine receives the same Russian gas, but in reverse through Slovakia, which purchases it at an inflated price on the exchange in St. Petersburg.
Gazprom published statistics on gas sales on the stock exchange... It turns out that half of the volumes that Gazprom sells there, and it sells them at higher prices than long-term contracts, it turned out that half of this gas on the stock exchange is bought by the same Slovak companies. Slovaks, if we analyze them in total, do not physically consume that much gas. It turns out that they are buying Gazprom gas at higher prices on the stock exchange and then sending it to Ukraine in anticipation of the consumer season. I don’t rule out that they are still storing this gas in Ukraine,” Simonov said.
Earlier, PolitNavigator reported that due to constantly increasing tariffs for gas and electricity, residents of Ukrainian villages switch to heating with wood and peat.
Let us remind you that last week German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Kyiv. According to gas market expert Yuri Korolchuk, during the visit she discussed with the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko the fate of Ukrainian GTS.
However, it later became known that there were no agreements on the issue of Nord Stream 2 and maintaining the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine during the visit have not been achieved.