Extra capacity announced for Slovak-Ukraine natural gas pipeline

Slovak transmission system operator Eustream has announced an open season for an additional 4.5 million cubic metres (mcm)/day of interruptible capacity on the Vojany pipeline taking gas from Slovakia into Ukraine. The extra capacity will be made available to successful bidders from 1 January 2015.

A statement from Eustream said it was able to offer the capacity in response to technical measures taken to increase capacity at the Ukrainian side of the pipeline.

Interested parties can register with Eustream from Tuesday until 17 November 2014. Binding requests for transmission capacity may be submitted until 19 November 2014.

In the meantime, Eustream has made the additional capacity available to any interested parties from Wednesday until 1 January 2015. The capacity will be posted on the Eustream website on Wednesday at 12:00, when it will be available for booking in line with standard Eustream conditions.

Currently the Vojany pipeline has a daily interruptible capacity of 280.8GWh/day – equal to just over 26mcm/day. The amount of capacity available on a firm basis will increase to 26mcm/day by March next year. This equates to roughly 10 billion cubic metres (bcm)/year. Eustream is currently analysing the feasibility of increasing this capacity to 14.5bcm/year ( see ESGM 23 October )

Eustream’s considerations come after recent requests from Ukrainian oil and gas incumbent Naftogaz for the Slovak company to increase the amount of gas that can be sent into Ukraine from Slovakia.

Following the halt in Russian gas supplies to Ukraine on 16 June this year, Ukraine has been sharply increasing its gas imports from the west (see separate story).

At the end of October an agreement was reached in Brussels between Russia, Ukraine and the European Commission on gas debt repayment and the resumption of Russian gas supply to Ukraine this winter ( see ESGM 31 October ). This could reduce the incentive for Ukraine to take increased gas volumes from the west over the next few months, but that will depend on the price of Russian gas relative to European hubs. When Russia introduced a significant gas price reduction to Ukraine in the first quarter of 2014, Ukraine immediately stopped taking European gas in reverse flow over its western border because it was no longer competitive with Russian gas. Elizabeth Stonor