NEWSWATCH: “Ukraine maintains gas transit to Europe despite new gas war with Russia” – Intellinews/Ben Aris

March 5, 2018 JRL Russia List JRL NewsBlog, Oil, Gas, Energy, Ukraine, Russo-Ukrainian War

“Fears that Russia would stop sending transit gas to its European customers via Ukraine were not borne out over the weekend despite Russian state own gas monopolist Gazprom’s announcement that it was going to break its contracts with its Ukrainian counter party Naftogaz on March 2. Naftogaz immediately announced emergency measures, calling on Ukrainians to turn down the thermostat, switching some heat plants to heavy fuel oil and calling on its European friends to increase reverse gas flows. Naftogaz said that it needed to reduce consumption of gas by 5%-10% to avoid shortages, but after the population rallied to its calls demand actually fell by 14%, according to the company. …”