Ukrainian Gas Strategy Hinges on Subsidies, Europe

While negotiating and speaking with Western partners, the Ukrainian government said that subsidies worth UAH 4.5 million (around €200,000) will be assigned to Ukrainian families before the heating season commences. 

“Almost each third Ukrainian citizen will obtain a subsidy,” Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk said on Sunday, as reported by the government’s website on Monday. 

According to the head of the Government, the state actively helped over two million Ukrainian families paying the bills for housing and communal services. He also explained that the process to get subsidies will be easier.

“All bureaucratic obstacles have been removed. Ukrainian family receive compensation directly from the state budget to pay their bills for gas, electricity, water and housing and communal services as a whole” he said. 

Meanwhile, Ukrainian and Danish participants took part to a workshop on the Ukrainian energy sector.

‘The workshop marked the beginning of in depth national work on energy balances statistics within the framework of the Ukrainian-Danish energy project/cooperation. During the workshop the delegates discussed and exchanged the knowledge on energy data, and this contributed to the identification of specific activities’ reads the note released by the Danish Energy Agency on Tuesday.

Ukraine seems to rely on Europe, while remaining critical of Russian strategy. 

"In theory we could pump [gas] without Russia at the price of $255 – we pay this price for reverse gas. This is $1.2 billion, and we don't have it now," Energy and Coal Industry Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn  said in an interview with Tyzhden.

He said that Kiev prefers to buy gas from European countries, as it did not agree on a package with Moscow for supplies for the 2015/2016 heating season. 

Last month, several reports published indicated that the country increased its requests for reverse flow gas from Slovakia by 34.6% - to 23.833 mcm - from the 1st of July.