While Europe is sending billions of euros in help for the Ukrainians, their officials have decided to cut the gas… Incredible, no?
Strange Sounds –
This is very bad news for the European industry… Ukraine has decided to halt the gas transit in the contested eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, reducing by 33% the flow of gas flow to the West.
Ukraine has stopped the transit of Russian gas to Europe in the Luhansk region. This means that a third of the maximum amount that can be transported per day is lost.
In other metrics, this decision means that up to 32.6 million cubic meters of gas per day will be lost. That is almost a third of the maximum amount that can be transported via Ukraine to Europe every day, the Ukrainian gas network operator announced on Tuesday.
Ukrainian officials argue that due to the Russian occupation, it had become impossible to forward gas to other distribution stations via the Sochranivka point. The operator referred to a case of “force majeure”.
In contrast, Russia’s energy giant Gazprom , which recently pumped almost 100 million cubic meters of gas through Ukraine to Europe every day, denied this affirmation with its spokesman Sergey Kupriyanov stating: “Gazprom has received no confirmation of circumstances of force majeure.”
Moreover, Gazprom indicates that it is technically impossible to divert the delivery of those missing 33% of gas via other routes. The contractual maximum capacity for Ukrainian gas transit to Europe is 109 million cubic meters per day.
Thankfully for Europe, the main route for Russian gas to Europe is the Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 1. But still, I don’t understand this move! If Zelensky still wants to receive some weapons from the West, he shouldn’t just close the western gas tap…
Read More
