Russia raises gas pressure at Ukraine's eastern border to contract level - Ukrtransgaz
KYIV. Aug 10 (Interfax) - Gazprom has raised gas pressure at Ukraine's eastern border to the contract level, a spokesman for Ukrainian gas transportation system operator Ukrtransgaz told Interfax.
"The pressure from the Russian side and on our western border corresponds with the contract. Gazprom's application yesterday for transit of 275.6 million cubic meters (mcm) was carried out in full," the spokesman said.
On Monday, Gazprom submitted a request to Ukrtransgaz to increase gas transit volumes to the EU by 20% to 275 mcm per day, although as of 10:00 a.m. the Russian side had not provided the corresponding pressure.
The Nord Stream gas pipeline across the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, which has capacity to ship 55 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas a year, halted operations on 7:00 a.m. Moscow time on Tuesday for a scheduled maintenance shutdown until August 17.
"This routine maintenance work will require a temporary shutdown of both lines at once. The full capacity of the pipeline system will be available again by August 19, 2016, when additional planned work of our upstream partner in the Russian section is concluded," German pipeline operator Nord Stream AG said.
In order to compensate for Nord Stream's temporary shutdown, gas transit through Ukraine will increase.
Based on the current configuration of Russian export flows, gas exports to the non-CIS might total 13.8 bcm in August, roughly on a par with exports in August 2015, according to Interfax calculations.
