Kremlin’s claim that it has limited capacity to inject gas into European USFs “continued blackmail”

This is what Yuriy Vitrenko, chairman of the board of Naftogaz of Ukraine, says, reports Ukrniform.

The Kremlin says it is supposedly ready to deliver more gas to Europe and claims the problem is limited capacity to inject gas into Europe’s underground storage facilities. This is an ongoing attempt to blackmail Europe over Nord Stream 2. They claim you don’t have enough time to pump enough gas before winter. So let’s start this pipeline without fully complying with EU regulations, â€Vitrenko wrote.

The head of Naftogaz notes that Ukraine has sufficient capacity in its USFs of around 10 billion cubic meters. In addition, gas can be pumped into Ukrainian USF after the start of the heating season, provided that supplies from Russia increase.

“Therefore, Gazprom should allow European companies to purchase gas on the Russian-Ukrainian border so that they can then pump more gas into our storage facilities,” said Vitrenko.

He also stressed that, contrary to European regulations, Gazprom is effectively blocking third party access to gas pipelines from Russia to the EU.

background

• On September 10, Russia’s gas monopoly Gazprom announced the completion of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which was being laid from Russia to Germany on the bottom of the Baltic Sea, bypassing Ukraine. Russian Gazprom is the sole shareholder in the project.
• The Federal Network Agency has been examining the Nord Stream 2 certification application from the operator Nord Stream 2 AG since September 8th.
• Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic countries and the United States have spoken out against the pipeline. The German side promises to do everything possible to ensure that Ukraine keeps its transit role and expects guarantees from Russia that the gas transit contract with Ukraine will be extended after the expiry of the current 5-year contract, which was signed in December 2019.

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