Naftogaz has already pumped about 10 billion cubic metres of gas out of the planned 13.2 billion into underground storage facilities. The company's CEO Oleksiy Chernyshov said this in an interview with LB.ua.
"Since April, our injection rates have been ahead of last year's figures. Now we are talking about 400 million cubic metres more. We pump about 28-30 million per day. Months are different, and now we are moving to the fastest possible injection. It will be more than 30 million cubic metres per day. That is why we are very optimistic and constructive about meeting our target of 13.2 billion cubic metres by 1 November," said Chernyshov.
According to him, this volume should also be enough to build an additional 1 GW of gas-fired shunting generation to produce electricity, which was previously announced by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
"We plan to store 13.2 billion cubic metres of natural gas as of 1 November. This is usually when the heating season starts, given the warmer weather conditions in previous years. Does this volume cover additional needs? The answer is yes. Let's hope that the pace of installation of new generation will keep pace with our expectations," says the Head of Naftogaz.
According to Oleksiy Chernyshov, the success of securing additional generation capacities consists of three components.
"The first is our ability to restore large stations in time. In my opinion, this will give the largest figure of additional or missing capacity. The second component is additional generation from new installations: mobile, decentralised and others. And the third component, which may be the key one, is the state's ability to protect these facilities with air defence systems. This equation is the formula for our success before the next winter. We will see whether some components will work more or less, but they are all equally important," Chernyshov said.