Ukraine freezes underground gas storage tariffs until April 1, 2025
MOSCOW. March 19 (Interfax) - Ukraine offers attractive and competitive tariffs to underground gas storage customers, which will remain unchanged until April 1, 2025, Ukrainian media reported, quoting a Naftogaz Group press release.
"One of our key objectives for 2024 is to increase the volume of gas stored by foreign energy companies in Ukraine's underground storage facilities. This is not just an issue of security but also money for the Ukrainian economy, so a decision has been reached to leave the tariffs unchanged," said Naftogaz Group CEO Alexei Chernyshov.
He said foreign partners had asked the company to store 2.5 billion cubic meters of gas, despite the crisis.
"We need to maintain their trust and attract more partners who did not take this step last year. Tariff policy is a key factor demonstrating our attractiveness and stability. Although the gas injection season is not yet underway, there are already companies that are storing their fuel in Ukrainian underground facilities," he said.
Ukrtransgaz, which manages Ukraine's underground storage facilities, also offers partners the option of storage in "customs warehouse" mode, according to the press release.
"More than 160 foreign energy companies from 32 countries store gas in 'customs warehouse' mode in Ukraine's underground storage facilities. We are actively preparing for the injection season so that both Ukrainian and foreign companies can inject significant volumes of gas into storage without hindrance," said Roman Malyutin, head of Ukrtransgaz.
Ukrtransgaz has already begun preparations for the start of this year's gas injection season, which begins in April. The company is conducting scheduled checks and maintenance of main and auxiliary equipment to ensure the reliability and safety of storage for all clients.
Naftogaz has also frozen gas tariffs for households served by Gas Distribution Networks of Ukraine LLC since the crisis began, supplying them at UAH 7.96 per cubic meters under a "Fixed" tariff plan.
The regulator set the tariffs for Uktransgaz to store, inject and withdraw gas at UAH 0.4, UAH 243.53 and UAH 253.03, respectively, per thousand cubic meters not including VAT effective from July 1, 2022.