General Director of the Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine (GTSOU) Dmytro Lyppa expects an increase in demand for gas storage in underground gas storage (UGS) facilities in the country in the next three to five years.

The company's press service said, citing him that GTSOU is developing a direction to attract foreign traders interested in transporting and storing natural gas in Ukraine. Among the promising countries are Greece, Romania, Azerbaijan and Poland.

"In the next three to five years, we predict a surplus of natural gas in the southern region of Europe at the level of 10 billion cubic meters, which can be transported for storage in Ukraine," Lyppa said.

At the same time, he said that the current capacities on the border with Poland are not yet sufficient to ensure the possibility of transporting large volumes of gas.

"But they are fully booked – and this is, of course, a positive signal. The development of LNG terminals will also create a surplus of gas in Poland, which we are ready to transport to Ukrainian underground gas storage facilities," he added.

Lyppa also said that the operator's priorities today are optimizing the GTS infrastructure, reducing gas use, and improving operation and maintenance practices.

"These are areas that we are already actively implementing, and which will shortly have a positive effect. Our European partners call this rightsizing – determining the optimal, economically feasible size of the gas transmission system," the head of GTSOU said.

According to him, the company is also working on switching to a mobile model for servicing gas distribution stations.

"We are implementing the approach adopted in Europe: a technical specialist comes to the site, carries out the necessary work and goes to the next one. We must introduce this throughout the entire system in three to four years," he said.