Gazprom bookings for transit via Ukraine remain at peak on Fri, gas being delivered for export as scheduled
MOSCOW. April 1 (Interfax) - The price of gas supplies under Gazprom's export contracts should increase noticeably from the beginning of April. Most of them are "month ahead" contracts: in March, their value was about $930 per 1,000 cubic meters, while in April it increased to about $1400 (which, incidentally, almost coincides with the value of the "one day ahead" spot contract at the TTF hub on Friday).
Furthermore, a new payment procedure for Russian gas supplies was introduced by presidential decree effective April 1 - with obligatory conversion of the contract currency into rubles. Despite the confused or hostile comments from European politicians on this innovation, as well as the price increase - European buyers are maintaining practically the same requests for withdrawal of Russian gas.
Pumping via the Ukrainian gas-transit corridor on Tuesday remains at the same peak level, corresponding to the volumes of the long-term contract of 40 billion cubic meters per year, or 109 million cubic meters per day.
"Gazprom is supplying Russian gas for transit through the territory of Ukraine in the regular mode in accordance with the bookings of European consumers at 108.4 million cubic meters on April 1," Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov told reporters.
According to the data of the Gas Transmission System (GTS) Operator of Ukraine, nomination for April 1 is 107.6 million cubic meters, and bookings for March 31 totaled 109.5 million cubic meters.
The Yamal-Europe gas pipeline, which transports gas through Belarus and Poland to Germany, was pumping gas in the forward direction at the entrance to the German GTS on Wednesday and Thursday afternoon. Gazprom made a small booking of pipeline capacity overnight, but the sum of the April 1 bids (forward and reverse) is in favor of the reverse direction (from Germany to Poland). The pipeline is now operating in reverse on the section between Germany and Poland.
Colder temperatures have set in in Europe this week. Average temperatures are 7 degrees below the week of March 14-20; with significant subzero temperatures at night, which will provide new support for gas prices. Further cold fronts are being forecast next week.
The situation with wind power generation has finally improved in Europe. If during the first three days of this week (March 28-30) wind farms provided only 10% of electricity generation in the EU, their share jumped to 20.5% on Thursday, according to WindEurope data.