On April 17, 2025, Ukraine officially started the natural gas injection season into underground gas storage facilities (UGS), according to ExPro monitoring based on GIE data.
Thus, on April 17, 2.1 mcm of natural gas was injected into underground storage facilities, while gas withdrawals amounted to only 0.5 mcm, which indicates the beginning of the gas injection season. Over the next few days, gas injection volumes increased to 5.3 mcm on April 19.
Reserves in the UGS facilities
Ukraine completed the 2024-2025 gas withdrawal season on April 16, when 2.1 mcm of natural gas was withdrawn from the storages. At the end of this year's withdrawal season, gas reserves in Ukrainian storage facilities amounted to almost 5.41 bcm, of which almost 670 mcm is active gas. Overall, the storage facilities are 17.5% full.
This year's gas reserves at the beginning of the injection season are the lowest in history, updating the previous low recorded in 2001 - 5.8 bcm.
Results of the withdrawal season
This year's gas withdrawal season from underground storage facilities lasted 167 days - from November 1, 2024, to April 16, 2025, and was 22 days longer than last year. At the same time, almost 7.56 bcm of gas was withdrawn from the storages, which is 13% less than during last year's withdrawal season - 8.65 bcm.
The highest daily volumes of gas withdrawals from storage facilities were in mid-February, reaching 76.6 mcm on February 12, which was the maximum during this year's withdrawal season. In February, Ukraine experienced cold weather, which led to a significant increase in gas consumption. In addition, a significant reduction in production volumes after massive Russian attacks required an increase in withdrawals from storage facilities. Nevertheless, this year's withdrawal peaks are significantly lower than last year, when in early January withdrawals exceeded 100 mcm per day.
Preparing for the next winter
Given the low gas reserves in Ukrainian storage facilities at the beginning of the gas injection season, Ukraine needs to significantly increase its natural gas imports in preparation for the next heating season.
To reach last year's level of storage capacity at the beginning of the withdrawal season, 7.51 bcm of natural gas must be injected into the storages by early November. Part of the volume will be covered by domestic production, which is still reduced, recovering from Russian shelling.
However, much of the gas will have to be imported. According to Naftogaz, the required imports amount to 4-4.5 bcm. Finding the funds to import significant volumes of natural gas by the beginning of next winter remains an important issue.
