You're reading: Gas supplies to Ukraine won’t resume in near future according to Gazprom’s Miller

Ukraine won't pump enough gas to get through the winter into underground storage facilities unless it receives gas from Russia, but Russia will not be resuming supplies in the days to come, the head of Gazprom, Alexei Miller, told reporters during a visit to the Amur region.

“As of today, Ukraine does not have the financial resources for gas supplies to resume. We are in direct contact with the management of Naftogaz Ukrainy, there are financial problems, so unfortunately there’s no reason to talk about gas supplies to Ukraine [from Russia] resuming in the next few days,” Miller said, when asked whether the supplies might begin before the end of the third quarter.

He said that in the best-case scenario, Ukraine might resolve problems with financing during September.

“There are, of course, certain risks in this because in the current period, gas is being pumped into underground storage. As of today, by preliminary counts, 14.4 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas has been pumped in. The daily volume of pumping that Ukraine is able to cover with its own production and modest reverse volumes are not enough to achieve a volume of 19 bcm by the start of the withdrawals period,” Miller said.

He said that was the volume that would guarantee steady, dependable gas supply to consumers in Europe and enable consumers in Ukraine itself to get through the winter without disruption.

“So we’re establishing that without additional gas volumes – and these can come only from Russia, only from Gazprom – without that, Ukraine will not be able to pump that 19 bcm in,” Miller said.