MOSCOW, Jan 18 Naftogaz may limit gas supplies to households and industry, as well as the «selection» of Russian transit gas in the event of an acute shortage of «blue fuel», such an opinion was expressed on her Facebook by the honored power engineer of Ukraine, the former acting. Minister of Energy of the country Olga Buslavets. According to her, at the moment there are 6.6 billion cubic meters of gas left in Ukrainian underground storage facilities for domestic consumption, while the deficit of «blue fuel» in the first quarter is at least two billion cubic meters.
The Rada told how much Ukraine would overpay for scarce gas «Ukraine will not be able to do without importing it to cover peak loads during the heating period due to low air temperatures,» Buslavets wrote. According to her, Naftogaz is «in a deep financial deficit, there are no funds for gas imports.» At the same time, the authorities will have to «search» for the company funds for purchases in the amount of two to three billion dollars. — the expert warned. As a result, Kiev, according to Buslavets, will have three scenarios of action. Firstly, it is the restriction or shutdown of the consumption of industrial enterprises. Another option is to limit gas supplies to thermal power plants and boiler houses, which will cause a decrease in temperature in houses and there will be no hot water. transit through the territory of Ukraine and the termination of the current transit contract with the corresponding financial, economic, political consequences,» she wrote.Ukraine predicted a year of crisesIn early January, the former head of Naftogaz, Andrei Kobolev, also suggested that Ukraine would have to steal Russian gas from the transit pipe if it failed to ensure sufficient fuel imports to cover daily deficits. At the end of 2019, Russia and Ukraine signed a transit contract for five years. According to the document, «Gazprom» guarantees the pumping of 65 billion cubic meters of gas in the first year and 40 billion in the next four. Ukraine in 2015 stopped buying gas directly from Russia and replaced it with the so-called virtual reverse. Reverse means that the original consumer, having received ownership of the gas, supplies it in the opposite direction. The virtual reverse, on the other hand, is the offsetting of deliveries; it assumes that Ukrainian consumers take away part of the transit gas that Gazprom sends to Europe. Physically, it does not cross the western borders of the country, but is registered as imported from the EU. In autumn, an energy crisis broke out in the country due to a shortage of fuel, which is necessary, in particular, for generating electricity. Among other things, this is due to a sharp increase in gas prices, as well as a shortage of coal, which stopped more than half of Ukrainian thermal power plants. gas provoked a catastrophe in the baking industry in Ukraine
