Ukraine plans to sign agreements for the reverse delivery of natural gas from Germany through Hungary and Slovakia in the amount of 7 billion cubic meters (bcm) this year, the deputy chief of national oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy, Vadym Chuprun, has said.

"Up to one billion [m3 of gas] total volume [of reverse deliveries though Poland] I think will be. Furthermore, this year the plan is to secure separate contracts for the delivery of gas in the amount of up to seven billion cubic meters through Hungary and Slovakia," he said Tuesday at the annual Adam Smith Institute conference Ukrainian Energy Forum in Kyiv.

Chuprun said that framework agreements with Germany's RWE involve the delivery to Ukraine of up to 10 bcm annually, and the contract for this year up to 5 bcm with the possibility of increasing the amount.

At present, reverse gas deliveries are coming exclusively through Poland and amount to 1.8 million cubic meters (mcm) per day.

Because of Russia's unwillingness to revise the pricing parameters of the gas contract with Ukraine, the latter has adopted a course of diversifying its sources of energy resources and increased its own gas production. The basic project scenario for Ukrainian Energy Strategy for the period until 2030 involves increasing annual domestic gas production to 44.4 bcm and cutting imports to 5 bcm.

Naftogaz Ukrainy and Dmytro Firtash's OstChem Holding Limited (Cyprus) imported 32.927 bcm of natural gas worth $14.025 billion in 2012, the State Statistics Service has said. Ukraine imported 32.874 bcm of gas worth $14.003 billion from Russia, and 52.702 mcm worth $21.966 million from Germany under a contract with RWE.

Last December, Naftogaz Ukrainy imported natural gas from Germany for $407.5 per thousand cubic meters, while the Russian gas was costing Naftogaz and OstChem $429.3.