Gas from Russia to cost the Ukraine $900 million before the end of winter

Judging by the pace of gas consumption in December and the first half of January, the Ukraine will need not less than 4.2 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia in this heating season. According to the Kommersant’s calculations, Kiev must pay about $900 million more to receive gas, and the new prepayment shall be made in the next two weeks. But it will be extremely difficult for the Ukraine to find the money in the current state of pre-default.

During the first 14 days of January, the Ukraine, according to Ukrtransgaz, imported 1 billion cubic meters of gas, including 572 million cubic meters from Russia. During the same period, 1 billion cubic meters were taken from the Ukrainian underground storage. According to the average data of the fourth quarter of 2014, the domestic production in the Ukraine is about 1.68 billion cubic meters per month. Extrapolating these data, it can be expected that the total consumption in the Ukraine will make up about 6.2 billion cubic meters in January, and 5.7 billion cubic meters in February. This is an optimistic outlook: in the previous four years, except 2014, the average daily consumption in February was higher than in January. That is in the next two months the Ukraine will need to import 2.4 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia and to take 4.3 billion cubic meters from its underground storage facilities. Then by March the underground storage facilities will only have 6 billion cubic meters, 5 billion cubic meters of which will be buffer gas that can be taken.