Russia should increase gas deliveries through Ukraine as Europe’s reserves are insufficient for the coming winter, Amos Hochstein, senior adviser to the US State Department on energy security, said in an interview with Bloomberg
“There are actually gas pipelines through Ukraine with enough capacity to supply Europe with gas. Russia has repeatedly stated that it has enough gas reserves to do so, so if this is true, it should do so as quickly as possible through Ukraine”, – he said.
Gazprom’s refusal to book additional volumes of transit through Ukraine, he said, “has caused concern in Washington”. The head of the company, Aleksey Miller, earlier said that Gazprom supplies gas to Europe in line with the contracts it has signed.
The price of gas on the European exchange continues to break records: prices for October futures reached $908 per thousand cubic meters of blue fuel. According to Fitch analysts, the rise in prices was triggered by insufficient gas reserves in European storage facilities. According to the data from open sources, they are 72 per cent full, which is 14 per cent below the last five years.