Ukraine sees Russian gas transit volumes rising 9% in 2017

KIEV (Reuters) — Russian natural gas volumes sent via Ukraine to European customers is expected to rise by around 9% to 90 Bcm in 2017, Ukrtransgaz said on Monday.

Supply through Ukraine rose 23% to 45.7 Bcm in the first six months of this year.

Around 40% of Russia's gas exports to the European Union currently cross Ukraine but Russian gas exporter Gazprom has said it wants to bypass Ukraine by building new pipelines.

Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller last week said that gas transit via Ukraine could total just 10 Bcm–15 Bcm per year by 2020.

Russian gas transit through Ukraine fell to 64 Bcm in 2014 from 116 Bcm in 2010 and slightly rose to 67.5 Bcm in 2015.

Relations between the two nations have deteriorated since Russia's annexation of Crimea and Ukraine has not bought gas directly from Russia since November 2015, importing it instead from Europe.

Ukrtransgaz said gas imports rose to 7.0 Bcm of gas in January-June from 3.0 Bcm in the same period in 2016. The company said that it had pumped 3.7 Bcm of gas in reserves so far this year compared with 1.3 Bcm a year earlier.

Ukrainian energy ministry has said the country plans to accumulate around 17 Bcm of gas in underground storage in readiness for the cold season.

For the past heating season from October to April, Ukraine had 14 Bcm of gas in reserve.

Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, editing by Louise Heavens

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