Enlargement of Ukraine's gas transit system economically profitable for Europe's gas network, says PM

11:51

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has said that the enlargement of the Ukrainian gas transit system does not require significant investment and is economically profitable to the whole European gas network.

She made the comment while addressing an international investment conference on the modernization of Ukraine's gas transit system in Brussels on Monday.

"The enlargement of the Ukrainian gas transportation system, with its huge technical potential and developed infrastructure, does not require considerable investment and is economically profitable for the whole gas network of Europe," Tymoshenko said.

She said that a joint team of independent European and Ukrainian experts had drawn this conclusion after conducting a study of the system in 2002-2006. They concluded that the technical state of the Ukrainian gas transit system is satisfactory, and that it can pump 140 billion cubic meters of gas every year.

Tymoshenko said that bringing the use of the Torzhok-Dolyna gas pipeline to the level of its rated capacity, as well as the construction of the Novopskovsk-Uzhgorodo gas pipeline worth $5.5 billion, could increase the system's capacity at its exit point by 60 billion cubic meters per year.

"With the goal of conducting work on the modernization and extension of the gas transit system, the European Union should provide firm guarantees in terms of the amount of gas transited in the long term," she said.