KIEV: Ukraine, jointly with the International Finance Corporation and Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), is working on arranging private financing to buy natural gas for the next winter, a senior official at Naftogaz Ukrayiny said Wednesday. Goldman Sachs is helping Ukraine in this project, Yuriy Vitrenko, enterprise development chief at Naftogaz, said. IFC is a private investment arm of the World Bank.
“For quite some time now, we have been working on a very important project,” Vitrenko wrote on his Facebook page. “We are working on attracting investments to finance purchases of natural gas for the next winter.”
Naftogaz for the first time plans to raise private foreign investments to be used for purchases of natural gas that will be stored in underground facilities. Ukraine taps its storage facilities when demand for gas in the region accelerates in the winter. “This is an example of attracting foreign private investments when Ukrainian risks are insured by the US government insurance agency [OPIC],” Vitrenko said.
Ukraine suspended imports of Russian gas in November 2015 citing high prices charged by Gazprom, and focused on imports of European gas. This was the first time Ukraine has gone through the winter without importing any Russian gas.
Ukraine is currently using a $300 million loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to pay for imports of gas from Europe.
Ukraine was able to store 17.06 Bcm of gas in underground storage facilities before the start of the six-month high-demand season in October 2015, and used 8.46 Bcm of this gas between October 29, 2015, and March 29, 2016, according to Naftogaz. The facilities, capable of storing up to 31 Bcm of gas, are currently filled to 27.8% of their total capacity.
