Gazprom has resumed gas delivery to European UGS, doubling supplies through the pipeline to 64 million cubic metres per day, and bringing its rates closer to their pre-accident levels, Russian media reported on Wednesday, citing anonymous sources and data on storage capacity.
According to reports, deliveries may increase to roughly 77 million cubic metres per day as Gazprom refused to book additional capacity through Ukraine in September due to its plans to reduce pumping through the country by 14 million cubic metres per day.
As of 23 August, gas buffers in Gazprom's largest storage facilities in Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands reached a historic low, 12.8 percent of their capacity (approximately 11.7 billion cubic metres). Usually, the facilities contain five times that amount of gas.
In this photo taken on Thursday, July 14, 2016, Gazprom oil producing facility situated in the Yamal region, Russia
© AP Photo / Petr Shelomovskiy
The shortages ruled out the possibility of taking more gas from UGS to compensate for a supply reduction, recorded since 31 July. On 3 August, Gazprom stopped pumping gas into European UGS facilities and the fire at Gazprom's Novy Urengoy condensate preparation plant occurred on 5 August; these contributed to lower deliveries through the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline.