While Europe is somewhat cautious, there is little doubt in Ukraine: Russia is influencing the European gas crisis. That is what Svetlana Zalisjoek, executive adviser to state energy company Naftogaz, and Sergei Makogon, director of the Ukrainian gas pipelines, say to news hour.
They call the European Union’s attitude “too naive” and insufficiently alert to how Russia uses gas as a means of power. After all, in the coming years, Europe will still rely on Russian gas. “Gazprom has always been willing to supply you with sufficient gas in the past, until the year when the new Nord Stream 2 pipeline was to be launched, and problems arose,” says Zalisjoek.
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European gas storage facilities are emptier than usual this winter. And because there is a lot of demand for gas worldwide, Europe has been struggling with sky-high gas prices for months. The Russian state gas company Gazprom fulfills all its long-term gas contracts, but supplies hardly any extra gas to the so-called ‘spot market’ where short-term contracts are traded.
According to Russian President Putin, the commissioning of the brand-new Nord Stream 2 transport pipeline will largely solve those problems. Due to the construction of this leadwhich runs from Russia through the Baltic Sea directly to Germany, gas prices would fall again, he tells the European Union.
But the pipes that were already there, including those through Ukraine, are still far from their maximum capacity. In fact, for several months now, much less gas has been flowing through it than in previous years. Zalishuk believes this shows that Gazprom is not acting for business reasons, but to exclude Ukraine.
The graphs below show the amount of gas flowing per week through the four pipelines from Russia to Europe in 2021 and 2022. The dotted lines indicate the minimum and maximum amount of gas that flowed through the pipes in the period 2015 to 2020: (SOURCE: Bruegel/Entsog)
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Nord Stream
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Turkstream
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Ukraine
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Yamal
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The director of the Ukrainian gas pipelines, Sergei Makogon, also states that Putin’s reasoning does not hold. “Even without Nord Stream 2, there are plenty of pipelines. If Russia wants to have gas flow to Europe, this can be done without any problem via Poland, the Yamal pipeline or via our pipelines in Ukraine.”
“We are constantly offering extra capacity, but the Russians don’t book it. So we think they mainly want to bypass Ukraine and not use us as a transit country.”
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Makogon and Zalisjoek also see a security risk. Russia will become less dependent on Ukraine through Nord Stream 2 and can therefore afford more political and military pressure on the country. Zalishuk: “If Russia no longer needs us to transport gas to Europe, Putin will have more opportunity to interfere in our domestic politics and put pressure on our country.”
Ukraine is also afraid of missing out on the so-called transit fee from Russia with the arrival of Nord Stream 2 in the future. According to Makogon, Russia pays about 1.4 billion euros every year for the use of Ukrainian pipelines: “That sounds a lot, but that money all goes back to the gas pipeline system to invest in maintenance. And the wages of our 11,000 employees are reduced. paid.”
Complaint to European Commission
On December 22, the Ukrainian state energy company Naftogaz filed a complaint with the European Commission against Gazprom “for abusing its dominant position in the European gas market”. After several complaints, the Commission has now launched an investigation into the Russian state-owned company.
“Gazprom’s dominant monopoly position is currently a barrier to doing business for our company,” said Zalisjoek, Naftogaz’s executive advisor. “That is why we have filed this complaint. We believe that Gazprom is creating an artificial crisis in the European market.”
The European Commission is late news hour know that it is investigating whether “the current situation on the gas market in Europe can be attributed to commercial behavior of market parties”. The Commission says it has requested information from several European energy companies. Gazprom has also been asked to provide information, and has done so, according to the Commission. It is unclear when the preliminary investigation will be completed.
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