Slovakia confirms no problems with gas transit through Ukraine

Gas transit system operator of Slovakia Eustream a.s. has confirmed that transit of the Russian natural gas to the EU countries continues as usual a week after Gazprom cut off the supplies to Ukraine. “As of 9:00 CET (10:00 am Kyiv time) on June 23, Eustream has not recorded any reduction of pressure or gas volume heading from the east to the European Union at the compressor station Velke Kapusany on the border with Ukraine,” said Slovak operator in a statement.

In recent days, the volumes of transit have been increasing, according to the operator: daily nominations on June 16-19 were 105-107.7 mn cu m, while on June 21 – 124.9 mn cu m and on June 23 – 145 mn cu m, as Gazprom prepares to turn off the Nord Stream on June 24 for repair.

As a reminder, Gazprom stopped all gas supplies to Ukraine at 9:00 am on June 16, continuing its shipments to the countries in Europe through the Ukrainian pipelines. From that day on, Eustream has been publishing daily reports on pressure in the pipeline and volumes of gas supplies at the entry to the Slovak pipeline system, breaking only for the weekend. When on June 17 there was an explosion on the Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgrod pipeline in Poltava oblast, with Ukrainian authorities considering it a terrorist attack, the Slovak operator published the reports on the gas transit every two hours, while every time the pressure and volumes corresponded to the declared figures. Transit through Velke Kapusany in 2013 averaged 146.5 mn cu m per day, ranging within 50.3% - 78.9% of the maximum capacity.

As Capital reported Russia called the data on gas “settling” in Ukraine “technical recalculations”.