Poland halted reverse gas supplies to Ukraine at 14:00 on Wednesday due to the reduction of supplies from Russia to Poland, Ukrtransgaz CEO Ihor Prokopiv has said.
“Poland stopped reverse gas supplies to Ukraine at 1400. It supplied about four million cubic meters [per day],“Interfax-Ukraine quoted him on Wednesday.
He said that the reason for this was a reduction in gas supplies to Poland from Russia.
Poland said on Wednesday the volume of gas it has received so far this week from Russian gas monopoly Gazprom was down by at least 20 percent, reuters.com reports.
Some European countries believe Moscow may use a disruption of gas to Europe as a trump card in its confrontation with the West over Ukraine. The row has already dragged ties between Moscow and the West down to their worst since the Cold War.
Kyiv is already cut off from Russian gas in a pricing dispute and depends on these “reverse flows” to supply homes and businesses with gas.
Gazprom made no immediate comment. Polish gas monopoly PGNiG said it was trying to find out why volumes were down.
There was no indication that any European Union importers of Russian gas besides Poland were affected.
