Naftogaz working on possible reverse mode for Ukrainian GTS if Russia halts gas transit from Jan 1, 2020
National joint-stock company Naftogaz Ukrainy is preparing for reversing the Ukrainian gas transmission system (GTS) if Russia halts gas transit from January 1, 2020, Executive Director of NJSC Naftogaz Ukrainy Yuriy Vitrenko has said.
He said that in particular, reconstruction of the Bar compressor station (the Soyuz gas pipeline, Vinnystia region) will give additional reliability for supplying gas from the country's west to eastern regions.
"This is a challenge for the system... In the most painful points, we are trying to solve this problem," he said in an interview with the YouTube channel skrypin.ua.
Vitrenko also said that in the event of the termination of Russian gas transit through the Ukrainian GTS, not all the capacities at the western border of the country (42.5 million cubic meters a day to Slovakia, 17.1 million cubic meters per day to Hungary, and 6.4 million cubic meters to Poland) can be used to import gas from Europe.
"Not all the capacities from Europe, from Poland and Hungary, for example, are the so-called continuous capacities. That is, in fact, if there is no gas from Ukraine to Poland or Hungary, we cannot expect that gas will reversely flow into Ukraine. In Slovakia, about half of the capacity is uninterrupted. That is, we can also expect that we will receive half the gas from the most important Slovak direction," he said.
According to him, if transit is interrupted, Ukraine should pump additional volumes of gas into underground storage facilities in spring and autumn to meet the country's needs in the upcoming heating period.