Additional Slovakia-to-Ukraine gas pipeline capacity sells out

An additional 4.5 million cubic meters (mcm) of daily interruptible capacity to ship natural gas from Slovakia into Ukraine via the Vojany-Uzhorod pipeline has sold out, Slovak transmission system operator Eustream said on Thursday.

The new capacity, which has been made available from 1 January 2015, has been booked by shippers through to the end of 2019.

Ukraine is increasingly turning to west European markets to buy gas in order to reduce its reliance on direct Russian imports on the back of tension between the two countries.

This brings the total available capacity of the Budince nomination point on the Slovak network to 31.5mcm/day, equivalent to an annual 11.5 billion cubic meters.

The additional daily capacity has become available as Ukrainian system operator Ukrtransgaz made technical changes to the network on its side of the border.

The open season for the additional capacity was launched at the start of the month with binding requests due by 19 November.

Since the upgrade to the border-crossing earlier this month, Eustream has as an interim measure sold the additional interruptible capacity on a daily basis. Data from the operator show shippers have frequently flowed gas using the extra capacity on the Vojany-Uzhorod route ( see ESGM 14 November 2014 ).

The latest available data from Eustream shows that on 18 November 31.0mcm/day was sent eastwards over the Slovak border.

Ukraine is capable of importing from the European gas hubs via Poland and Hungary, as well as Slovakia. Polish data shows that just 2.0mcm/day is currently being delivered into Ukraine, while no volume at all is being sent east from Hungary.

Much of the gas shipped from Europe to Ukraine will still be produced in Russia even though ownership of it has at that point transferred to western buyers. Tom Marzec-Manser