Ukraine ready to allow foreign traders to use 50% of its gas storage: PM

The country’s biggest oil and gas firm Naftogaz earlier said that foreign customers could use more than 10 bcm of storage

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal speaks as he meets Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine Jul 19, 2023. REUTERS

Ukraine is ready to provide foreign energy traders with up to half of its underground gas storage capacity of 30 billion cubic metres (bcm), Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Wednesday.

Ukraine's biggest oil and gas firm Naftogaz earlier this year said that foreign customers could use more than 10 bcm of storage, mostly in the country's west, which is far from the front lines of the war with Russia.

Shmyhal told national television that 12 to 15 bcm of storage volume could be used by non-residents.

Shmyhal told a business forum in Berlin on Tuesday that foreign traders had already accumulated 3 bcm of gas in underground storage facilities so far.

Traders told Reuters earlier this year that European gas traders had begun storing natural gas in Ukraine to take advantage of lower prices and available capacity there, regardless of the risks from the war.