Ukraine lowers gas storage rates in order to encourage building up before winter

The Ukraine state energy tariff regulator cut the fee to?store gas in underground storage facilities by 11% on Tuesday. This was done to?encourage gas accumulation before the next heating season.

Ukraine has the largest underground storage capacity in Europe, with facilities that can hold over 30 billion cubic meters of gas.

Kyiv had previously encouraged Western companies to store and inject their gas into Ukrainian facilities to take advantage of the?low storage rates, then use it in winter to provide European consumers.

In 2023, foreign?companies?stored up to 3 billion cubic meters of _gas in Ukraine. After a dramatic increase in Russian attacks on Ukraine's gas industry, storage levels dropped to almost zero.

The regulator stated that the decision was taken to lower the 'tariff to create favourable conditions for the building of gas reserves and to increase?accessibility to gas storage services.

The 'new' tariff could be further reduced if you book storage services for at least one year. However, it will be higher if you only book the service for a day or for a single month.

Ukraine typically begins injecting gas in?storage during the spring to take advantage of lower prices and lower gas consumption. (Reporting and editing by Jan Harvey; Pavel Polityuk)

(source: Reuters)