Ukraine will have to buy Russian gas from the Nord Stream pipeline
Once a transit country, Ukraine can already receive gas today through Germany and a number of Eastern European countries.
Konstantin Simonov, Director of the National Energy Security Fund, announced this on Vesti Radio, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
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.
PolitNavigator previously reported that, due to constantly rising gas and electricity tariffs, residents of Ukrainian villages are switching to heating with wood and peat.
As a reminder, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Kyiv last week. According to gas market expert Yuriy Korolchuk, during her visit, she discussed the future of the Ukrainian gas transmission system with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
However, it later became known that no agreements regarding Nord Stream 2 or maintaining the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine were reached during the visit.
Ukraine will have to buy Russian gas from the Nord Stream pipeline.