Data show that Ukraine kept its gas imports high on Sunday.

The operator of the state-owned gas transmission system revealed that Ukraine will maintain its gas imports to a high level, 16,3 million cubic meters (mcm), on Sunday.

Data suggested that Ukraine would import gas from Hungary, Slovakia and Poland.

Ukraine increased its gas imports dramatically last week, following a series Russian missile attacks that targeted Ukrainian gas sector installations in recent months.

In January, Russia launched missiles and drones against Ukraine's Lviv region in western Ukraine where gas storage facilities were located as well as the Kharkiv area which is the main Ukrainian production area.

Ukraine has around 30 billion cubic metres of gas stored, but it no longer reports the amount of gas. These facilities have been regularly targeted by Russian missiles since the full-scale invasion of Russia in February 2022.

Kyiv may be forced to increase imports due to the decline in gas production as well as the difficulty of extracting fuel from underground storage.

German Galushchenko, Ukrainian Energy Minister, told Interfax Ukraine last week that Ukraine could import up to one billion cubic metres of gas for the current heating season.

Serhiy Makovon, the former head of transit operator, stated last month that Ukrainian gas consumption is 110 mcm per day. This was covered by 52mcm production and 58mcm storage. (Reporting and editing by Christina Fincher.)

(source: Reuters)