Ukraine's Gas Transport System Operator (OGTSU) has accepted a request from Gazprom for Monday to transport 44.3 million cubic meters of gas through the country, compared to 44.7 mcm on Sunday, data from OGTSU show.
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Capacity was requested only through one of two entry points into Ukraine's Gas Transport System, the Sudzha metering station. A request was not accepted through the Sokhranivka metering station.
"Gazprom is feeding Russian gas for transit through Ukraine's territory in the amount confirmed by the Ukrainian side through the Sudzha gas metering station - 43 mcm for May 23. The request for the Sokhranivka gas metering station was declined," Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov told reporters.
OGTSU declared a force majeure in regard to accepting gas for transit through Sokhranivka, citing the fact that it cannot control the Novopskov compressor station.
Gazprom believes there are no grounds for a force majeure or obstacles to continuing to operations as usual. Ukrainian specialists worked smoothly at the Sokhranivka and Novopskov stations all this time and continue to do so; transit through Sokhranivka was ensured in full, and there were and are no complaints from counterparties, the Russian gas giant has said.
As prices decrease on the market, Europe's liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports are beginning to fall somewhat in May from the record high of April, when the European gas transport system took in 10.651 billion cubic meters or 355 mcm per day from LNG terminals.
As of the last reporting date, May 21, use of regasification capacity at European terminals was at 63%, which is far from the peak of 77% at the end of April.
The region is continuing to inject gas into underground gas storage (UGS) facilities, reserves in which now stand at 42.63%, up by 0.5 percentage points from a day earlier, data from Gas Infrastructure Europe show. Reserves in Europe's UGS currently lag 3.1 percentage points behind the five-year average.
The weather in Europe this May has been almost five degrees warmer than it was a year earlier, which increases the region's ability to inject gas into storage.
Injection into UGS in April was slowed by high prices for imported gas, but in May imports from Russia increased and the pace of injection accelerated. In the first 17 days of May, the pace of gas injection into UGS exceeded the five-year average by 41%, compared to just 12% in April.
Europe imposed tight regulation of the use of UGS this year. Reserves are supposed to be at least 80% of UGS capacity by the start of the 2022 offtake season and increase to 90% in subsequent years.
Wind power contributed almost 17% of electricity generation across the European Union in the week from May 9 to 15, but the figure dropped to 13% in the week from May 16 to 22, data from WindEurope show. ■