Gas price: Ukraine and Europe. Market overview


Last week gas price remained high, following the trends of european quotations. Trade activity was low against the background of price fluctuations.

Ukrainian Energy Exchange

Last week, 9 companies-initiators of trades formed starting positions for both the sale and purchase of resources.


Last week, the initiators of starting positions (mostly resource sellers) offered starting prices in the range of UAH 10,000 and above per a thousand cubic meters, although the gap between the proposals of different participants remained high. The initiators offered the resource in UGS mainly with the transfer in May, so, the starting prices of May resource and UGS were at the same level, the resource of June - on average by UAH 500 above. The rise of prices was activated by many companies-sellers the resource, however, buyers in general were not ready to agree to such a price level, so trading activity was low last week.


During the last week 1310 thousand cubic meters of natural gas were sold, mainly the resource of June. Quoted prices remained at approximately UAH 11,000 per thousand cubic meters and more. On the short-term UEEX natural gas market, participants formed bids and concluded agreements both in the Within-Day market segment and on the Day-Ahead market, in UGS and in the GTS. In total, 566 thousand cubic meters were sold during the week.

As of Friday, the last market price "for the Day Ahead" was UAH 11,000, the last Within Day market price was UAH 11,100.

European market


European hub prices have recently continued to rise. The lowest spot quotes were observed on CEEGEX, which as of May 14 amounted to 25.28 euros / MWh, which is equivalent to USD 323.94 per thousand cubic meters. At other hubs, the spot price was higher - up to USD 340.08. Contracts for the month ahead were on average 1% more expensive than spot prices, a quarter ahead were equivalent to current spot prices, and the season ahead was 1% cheaper. Oil prices have been falling over the past two weeks, followed by a gradual recovery. The price of futures for July Brent oil as of Friday was USD 68 per barrel.

Prices of contracts with delivery in due time, euro / MWh, 13/05/2021

InstrumentNCGCEGHTTFGaspoolTGE/POLPXCEEGEX/HUDEXAverage price
Day122,9322,8822,8622,8524,5122,7123,12
May2122,8122,9922,5222,8124,5322,3423,00
3Q2122,6722,7822,2922,6723,7622,3922,76
W-2123,4223,0523,2323,4225,2822,1923,43

Gas balance in Ukraine

Imports of natural gas from the European direction last week remained low - 0.3 million cubic meters and was available all from Hungary. The volume of domestic production averaged about 52.75 million cubic meters per day, which is slightly less than in previous periods. Withdrawal from UGS ends in favor of injection, this week the average daily withdrawal was 0.03 cubic meters per day. The decrease in consumption is due to an increase in average daily temperature. As of 13.05.2021, 15.39 billion cubic meters of natural gas remain in the UGS , which is 50% of the design capacity.


Public procurement

Over the last week, 12 tender procedures were conducted for the purchase of natural gas by budgetary institutions. In total of 1.43 million cubic meters of natural gas was sold in all tenders in the amount of UAH 11.85 million. The largest two contracts were awarded to the company LLC "GAS COMPANY", which will supply the Dnieper State Medical University 728.67 thousand cubic meters of natural gas at a starting price of UAH 7.99 per cubic meter and the Municipal Enterprise "KYIV METROPOLITAN" in the amount of 415 thousand cubic meters at the starting price of UAH 8.52 / cubic meter.

Other large purchases are presented in the chart below. Prices ranged from UAH 7.40 to UAH 9.97 per cubic meter.


Interesting for the week

The Polish gas transmission system operator Gaz-System announced on May 6 that the last preparatory processes are underway before the start of the construction of the 10 billion cubic meter Baltic pipeline m/year. The three ships will cover about 274 km of pipeline during summer, Gaz-System reported. Research ships have been inspecting the project route for explosives and environmental problems since last year. Baltic Pipe inject Norwegian gas, which comes mainly from fields owned by the Polish monopoly on gas imports PGNiG, through Denmark to Poland, helping the latter to reduce supplies from Russia. It is scheduled to be completed on October 1, 2022.

Gazprom will increase domestic gas storage capacity next winter season. Russia’s gas monopoly Gazprom plans to surpass the records set by its internal storage facilities in the winter of 2020-2021 this coming winter. Last winter, exceptional demand was observed due to non-standard temperatures, which persisted this spring. In order to ensure the reliable operation of UGS in the autumn-winter period of 2021-2022, the company plans to accumulate at least 72.638 billion cubic meters and increase the potential maximum daily supply capacity to 847.9 million cubic meters. In the last heating season, the reserves of working gas for all time amounted to 72.322 billion cubic meters.