In the second quarter of 2013 Ukraine left the list of the three largest foreign markets for Gazprom, the company said in a statement released yesterday. Ukraine was overtaken even by Belarus, whose economy is three times smaller than the Ukrainian one. In the past six months Ukraine bought less than 10 billion cubic meters of gas from Gazprom, i.e. 40% less than last year. In Germany, a comparable figure is 18.49 billion cubic meters, in Italy 13.1 billion. Turkey is third on the list of the three biggest markets for Gazprom with 12.9 billion cubic meters, according to Lenta.ru.
In the second half of the year fuel purchases by Ukraine may increase, as it will need to pump fuel into underground storage facilities, which are the reserves for the winter. Kiev has already reported that in August it is going to buy 2-2.5 billion cubic meters of gas. The general forecast for the year of "Naftogaz", the Ukrainian state importer, is 18 billion cubic meters, and other structures will buy about 9 billion cubic meters.
The efforts of the Ukrainian authorities to replace the fuel of "Gazprom" are associated with its extremely high price. The Russian monopoly sells gas to Ukraine for more than $400 per thousand cubic meters, which is much higher than the price for other neighbors of Russia, in particular for Belarus.
