Ukraine has agreed to purchase LNG from the United States: how to deliver it?

Alexey Belogoryev, Research and Development Director of the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented on the prospects for LNG supplies from the United States to Ukraine to the Oil and Capital magazine.

As Alexey Belogoryev noted, since 2022 Greece has been trying to position itself as the main gas hub of Southeastern and even partly Central Europe (trying, and not unreasonably, to take this role away from Turkey). A "vertical corridor" is one way to achieve such a goal. Poland has been delivering certain volumes, albeit small ones, to Ukraine since 2015. Based on this, technically LNG can reach Ukraine from the shores of the United States. The question is how much it will cost and what volumes are we talking about.

"The idea of the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline, through which gas used to come from Russia, has been repeatedly discussed. Since 2020, Gazprom no longer uses it, having switched to the Turkish Stream. But certain volumes of flows are recorded for the supply of Romania and Bulgaria. In principle, it can be used to supply gas to Ukraine from Bulgaria, which will buy gas from Greece. The question, however, is in volumes. If they are serious, then it is necessary to expand the pumping capacity. The same applies to the Polish direction. It all depends on how much gas Kiev will need.

Gas production in Ukraine is relatively stable, and if Kiev manages to keep the mark of 20 billion cubic meters per year, then given the falling consumption in the country, it is not necessary to import a lot. It is quite possible that 2-3 billion cubic meters will be enough, so technically it can be imported from the south and through the Baltic Sea. Another question is that the price will be clearly higher than if gas was bought from Russia, as before. When shipping from the USA, the distance is too long and there are too many intermediaries.

But in a certain sense, this is more reliable than simply buying gas from Europe in reverse on the spot market, where, unlike long—term contracts, the price changes every day," the expert concluded.