Gas supply from Hungary to Ukraine increased tenfold to a record 7.4 million cubic meters (mcm) per day on Monday, up sharply from 720,000 cubic meters per day on March 7-12, the Ukrainian gas transportation network operator Ukrtransgaz said.
“On March 16, daily natural gas supplies to Ukraine from Hungary amounted to 7.4 mcm. From March 7 to March 12, when gas supply from Hungary was increased, the deliveries stood at 0.72 mcm per day,” Ukrtransgaz said in a statement on its website on Monday, RT reported.
Ukraine imported 52 mcm of gas from Hungary in the first half of March, the operator added. Last year, Ukraine imported 600 mcm of gas from its western neighbor.
In addition, Ukraine state-owned oil and gas company Naftogaz paid $15 million for Russian natural gas on Monday, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian state energy company said on Tuesday. In a separate statement, Russian gas exporter Gazprom said that based on Naftogaz’s current requests, the pre-payment would cover seven days of supplies.
The statistics from Naftogaz come at a time when Ukraine is seeking to diversify away from Russian supplies. The new gas conflict with Moscow could trigger another cut-off. Meanwhile, Kiev says it is going to cut imports from Russia to zero and buy gas in reverse schemes from western neighbors like Slovakia and Poland. Last week, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko claimed Russia charges Ukraine 15 percent more for its gas than the countries in Europe and said he would get gas in reverse supplies from Europe at $245 per 1,000 cubic meters.
Ukraine, where the economy is in crisis, now pays for Russian gas in small tranches. The last tranche – $15 million – was made on March 6 and was supposed to last through March 15.
