Ukraine from March 9, 2017 finished pumping natural gas from underground storage facilities and started pumping gas into them.

According to current data from public joint-stock company Ukrtransgaz, on March9 through March 11 net pumping into inventories exceeded net pumping from inventories by 11.32 million cubic meters (mcm). In particular, on March 9, March 10 and March 11 pumping into inventories was 3.73 mcm, 4.97 mcm and 4.63 mcm, while pumping from inventories was 960,000 cubic meters, 510,000 cubic meters and 540,000 cubic meters.

Thus, since the start of the heating season started on October 13, 2016 and as of March 8, 2017 (inclusively) Ukraine cut natural gas stocks in underground storage facilities by 44.5% or 6.552 bcm, to 8.18 bcm.

As of March 11, 2017, 8.192 bcm of natural gas was in underground storage facilities of Ukraine with the lowest limit of around 5 bcm.

"I cannot but remember how it was said in autumn that we were to buy and pump 2.5 bcm of gas more. If we agreed to this then, now there were 10.5 bcm of gas in storage facilities or 5.5 bcm more than the comfort level. I understand that the stock would not burn the pocket, but an additional 2.5 bcm of gas is around $500 million," Naftogaz Ukrainy Commercial Director Yuriy Vitrenko wrote on his Facebook page.

As of March 11, 2017, daily imports of gas were 43.735 mcm, of which 39.239 mcm from Slovakia, 1.399 mcm from Hungary and 3.097 mcm from Poland. Ukraine has not imported gas from Russia since November 26, 2015. It imported a total of 429.472 mcm on March 1 through March 11.

Gas production in Ukraine on March 11 was 57.677 mcm, of which Ukrgazvydobuvannia produced 41.633 mcm, Ukrnafta - 3.433 mcm and other companies - 12.611 mcm. Overall production on March 1 through March 11 was 633.5 mcm.

Transit via Ukraine's gas transport system was 2.33 bcm in the period March 1-11, corresponding to a daily rate of about 211.8 mcm.

Naftogaz Ukrainy officials said the gas stocks are sufficient to make it through the heating season and, if the winter is more severe than expected, Ukraine has the capacity to increase imports. Naftogaz calculates that stocks will end the heating season in the range 7-8 bcm, compared with the minimum allowable level of 5 bcm.

Withdrawals in 2016 exceeded injections by 2 bcm: 8.391 bcm was withdrawn and 6.389 bcm was injected.

Ukrtransgaz, a wholly owned subsidiary of Naftogaz Ukrainy, operates the country's gas pipelines and 12 underground gas storage facilities with a total capacity of 31 bcm.