Yesterday Gunter Oettinger, the European Energy Commissar, discussed “safety of Russian gas deliveries to Europe” with Aleksei Miller, President of Gasprom, press officer of the European Energy Commissar told ITAR-TACC.
“The goal of the meeting was to discuss the urgent issues related to energy and safety of deliveries. Oettinger took advantage of this possibility to emphasize importance of reliable and safe gas deliveries from Russia and announce that the EU expects Russia to honor its commitments,” said the same source.
She said that Alexander Medvedev, chief of Gasprom Export, also took part at the talks.
As a rule, injection of gas into the underground storages begins from April 1, 2014. Recently injection of gas into the Ukrainian underground gas storages was a sensitive topic, because regularity of Russian gas transit to Europe depends in many respects on the level of gas injection into the Ukrainian storages.
As Naftogas lacks funds to pay for the current gas extraction, the company will hardly be able to fund purchase of gas for its injection into the underground gas storages. Aleksei Miller, Gasprom President, said last year under no circumstances the holding is going to store gas in the Ukrainian storages (the reason is that the incident with RosUkrenergo, when Russian gas was seized by the Ukrainian authorities).
Gasprom claimed earlier that volume of gas in the underground gas storages should total 19 billion cub.m. to guarantee regular transit. Now Ukraine’s underground gas storages have 7.2 billion cub.m. Therefore, with the current price for Russian gas Ukraine will need $3.6-4.6 billion to inject gas into the underground gas storages.
