Ukraine has increased its daily order on Friday for the import of natural gas from Slovakia by 4.2 times, from 0.484 million to 2.048 million cubic meters, the Slovak gas transmission system operator Eustream has reported.

In the past three days, imports from Hungary amount to 1.6 million cubic meters a day, which brings the daily amount of imported gas brought to the country in the two directions to 3.6 million cubic meters, PJSC Ukrtransgaz, the operator of Ukraine's gas transport system, has said.

As was reported, Naftogaz CEO Andriy Kobolev said on June 30 that the state holding was planning to start importing gas for pumping it into underground storage facilities at its own expense in the first ten days of July and at the expense of funds from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in the last two weeks of July.

Naftogaz's recent reports say that the minimum stocks in the storage facilities prior to the 2016/2017 heating season should be 14.5 billion cubic meters gas, which corresponds to their replenishments from April by 6.1 billion cubic meters.

As reported, Ukraine in June 2016 imported a mere 19.7 million cubic meters of gas, imports in May were 96.4 million cubic meters.

Ukrtransgaz, wholly owned by NJSC Naftogaz Ukrainy, operates the system of main gas pipelines and 12 underground gas storage facilities in the country.