Russian state gas concern Gazprom affirmed that it has been complying with all gas supply requests from foreign consumers and has guaranteed long-term supply contracts for said resource.
To this end, the Russian company has indicated, through a statement, that the Ukrainian corridor for gas pumping is being used 100% under the transit agreement.
However, Gazprom pointed out that the high price of the energy resource at present is due to the fact that all the gas injected in the summer has been withdrawn from the underground gas storage facilities (UGS) of Europe.
According to Gas Infrastructure Europe, as of February 26, two days after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the volume of active gas in European underground storage facilities was 21.5% (7.9 billion cubic meters) less at last year’s level.
The total gas balance at the UGS facilities in Europe it is 29.5%. Underground storage facilities in Germany are already 70.6% empty, and in France, 77.1%, the gas company has specified.
It is worth mentioning that, since last January 7, according to Gazpromthe level of reserves in the European facilities of UGS has moved to historical lows during a long-term observation period and already on February 26 was 600 million cubic meters less than the minimum for this date.
Gas extraction from UGS’s European facilities generally continues until the end of March or mid-April. Thus, now the selection will come from the volumes that were pumped to storage facilities in Europe even before, in 2020 and previous years, he explained.
“In order to replenish gas reserves in European storage facilities for next winter, it will be necessary to pump such large volumes of gas that have never been pumped in a single summer season,” he explained. Gazprom.
Furthermore, the total amount of gas available on the European market depends to a large extent on the demand in the growing Asian market.
The occupation of the UGS facilities in Ukraine currently continues at minimum levels, since since last February 26, two days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it has been reduced to 10,300 million cubic meters, 44% (81,000 million cubic meters) less than last year, and 5,000 million cubic meters less than at the start date of injection in April 2021.
Source: Larepublica
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