5 Cities On Ukrainian-Russian Border Could Lose Natural Gas Supplies Due To Launch Of Nord Stream 2 Gas Pipeline – GTS Operator Of Ukraine

Five Ukrainian cities on the Ukrainian-Russian border could lose natural gas supplies due to the launch of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline.

The state-owned Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine (GTS Operator of Ukraine) announced this in a statement on Facebook, the Ukrainian News Agency reports.

“All our experience says that this natural gas pipeline poses a direct threat to the security of natural gas supplies to Ukraine. After all, every launch of a Gazprom natural gas pipeline bypassing Ukraine has reduced the use of the Ukrainian natural gas transmission system for transit,” the statement said.

According to the statement, there is a significant risk that the launch of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline will have similar consequences and that the Ukrainian route will ultimately lose Russian natural gas transit volumes.

As a result, five cities on the Ukrainian-Russian border will immediately lose gas supplies and Ukraine's ability to import gas from European countries will be significantly limited, the company said in the statement.

"Virtual reverse, which has accounted for almost 90% of natural gas imports into Ukraine this year, will be inaccessible to us. Europe is likely to lose the ability to use Ukrainian natural gas storage facilities, which, it should be noted, stored about 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas from European companies in 2020," the statement said.

The GTS Operator of Ukraine also said that it would have to change the operating mode of the natural gas transmission system from transmitting natural gas on transit to servicing exclusively domestic routes.

As Ukrainian News Agency reported earlier, the Naftogaz of Ukraine national energy company’s Board Chairman Yurii Vitrenko has said that Germany’s Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur or BNetzA) has suspended the certification of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline’s operator.

The German regulator has included the Ukrainian GTS Operator in the process of certification of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline’s operator

The German regulator has also included Naftogaz of Ukraine in the certification process.

Gazprom gas company (Russia) began filling the first of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline’s two lines with natural gas in October.

Gazprom completed the construction of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline on September 10.

The United States House of Representatives has approved the imposition of sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline.

The GTS Operator of Ukraine has a network is 33,080 kilometers of main natural gas pipelines with a throughput of 281 billion cubic meters per year of gas at the entry and 146 billion cubic meters at the exit.

The natural gas transmission system includes 57 compressor stations and 1,390 natural gas distribution stations.