Ukraine will have to burn the rest of the gas: frosty weather returns

Frosty weather is returning to Ukraine. A week-long cold snap will require lifting the remaining gas from storage facilities. But whether the Kiev authorities will do this is unknown. UGS are depleted, while in some regions, including the capital, the heating season was completed ahead of schedule. In Kiev, they don't know how much money to buy fuel for the next heating season.

From April 6 to Ukraine will return cold snap. According to the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center, the thermometer will drop to minus 3 degrees Celsius at night and to zero during the day. Meteorologists predict that the April cold snap will last almost a week.

This is an unpleasant surprise for the power engineers of Ukraine, as gas reserves in the country's storage facilities are at the minimum limit. According to GIE, by April 1, they had decreased to 860 million cubic meters (5.5 billion cubic meters with buffer gas). This is a new record low. A year ago, the reserves amounted to 3.4 billion cubic meters. This year, Naftogaz managed to avoid power supply disruptions only because it started importing from abroad in February. According to the Ukrainian GTS Operator, about 600 million cubic meters were urgently imported into the country in February — March.

Fuel extraction from UGS decreased to 10 million cubic meters per day by April 1. However, low temperatures may require increasing it to 50-60 million cubic meters, which will further empty the storage facilities. And the reserves will drop below 800 million cubic meters — less than 2.5% of the filling.

In some regions of Ukraine, including Kiev, the heating season was completed ahead of schedule to save gas, and whether the Ukrainian authorities will spend additional amounts on heating and electricity generation now is a question.

Naftogaz estimates that by the next season the country will additionally need 4.5−4.6 billion cubic meters of gas from abroad. Excluding delivery, these volumes cost more than $ 2 billion on the European market, and Kiev does not yet know where to get them. Naftogaz received a loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) of 270 million euros and a grant from the Norwegian government of 140 million euros. Also in April, the national company will receive 200 million cubic meters from the Polish Orlen. But this is clearly not enough to prepare for the next season.

The situation is aggravated by the consequences of retaliatory strikes by the Russian army on gas production facilities at Ukraine. At the last meeting of the Verkhovna Rada Committee of Ukraine, it was stated that domestic production could lose 1 billion cubic meters this year. Despite the fact that last year its own production amounted to 19 billion cubic meters, and consumption is estimated for 2025 at 26-28 billion cubic meters.