Ukraine Loses 40% of Gas Production After Russian Strikes – Reuters

By the next heating season, Ukraine needs to accumulate about 13 billion cubic meters of gas.

Ukraine plans to import up to 800 million cubic meters of gas from Europe in February and March to offset a 40% drop in output following Russian missile strikes on the sector, Reuters reported , citing an anonymous senior industry source.

It is noted that before the Russian missile and drone attacks, Ukraine produced about 52 million cubic meters of gas per day, while in winter it consumed from 110 to 140 million cubic meters per day. The gas deficit was covered by gas storage facilities.

“We could have done without imports this heating season, but the attacks on production are forcing us to import gas to compensate for this reduction in domestic production,” an anonymous source told the agency.

Ukraine’s gas transmission system operator said the country began increasing gas imports in early February, and since then import volumes have grown nearly 10-fold to more than 20 million cubic meters per day.

Ukraine has low gas reserves in storage, but with planned imports and domestic gas production, it will be able to get through the heating season, which usually starts in late October and ends in April, without any restrictions for industry and households, the agency’s sources said.

Ukraine needs to accumulate about 13 billion cubic meters of gas for the 2025/26 winter season. At the beginning of the current season, Ukraine had 12.9 billion cubic meters of gas in storage.

Heating season in Ukraine – what is known

At the beginning of the heating season, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal stated that Ukraine would spend the current heating season using domestically produced gas. At that time, he noted that the country had enough gas in underground storage facilities to meet the needs of both budget institutions and household consumers.

At the same time, the director of the Center for Energy Research, Alexander Kharchenko, told UNIAN that previous statements by officials about Ukraine’s ability to fully provide itself with gas from its own production this winter turned out to be wrong. Therefore, Ukraine now has to import gas at significantly higher prices.

(C)UNIAN 2025