The gas stocks in Ukraine's underground gas storage facilities by early September 2009 exceeded 25 billion cubic meters, Fent Di, the press secretary of the Fuel and Energy Ministry of Ukraine, has told Interfax-Ukraine.
Taking into account data reported earlier, this means that in August gas pumping into the storage facilities was 2.75 billion cubic meters, a figure similar to the July indicator.
Earlier, Ukrainian Premier Yulia Tymoshenko said that Ukraine planned by the start of the 2009-2010 heating season (traditionally October 15) to store at least 27 billion cubic meters of gas in the underground gas storage facilities. This would fully provide for the country’s needs, taking into consideration the decrease in demand for gas caused by the increase in gas prices and the economic crisis.
In July to August, national oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy increased imports of Russian natural gas to 3.3 billion cubic meters a month, compared to 1 billion cubic meters in June, which allowed it to increase the pumping of gas stocks to the country’s underground gas storage facilities.
