Ukraine upgrades gas pipeline to expand gas reserve from Poland
At the Komarno compressor station in Ukraine’s Lviv region, construction and installation work has been completed and a new stretch of pipeline connector has been commissioned, Ukraine’s national gas pipelines operator UkrTransGaz announced in a press statement.
“The updated configuration of the linear part of the gas pipeline will allow us to transport the blue fuel in both the obverse and the reverse modes between Ukraine and Poland. The reconstruction will increase the capacity and flexibility of the transportation and help to ensure a reliable and smooth passing of the 2019/2020 heating season,” the statement reads.
The company noted that there are plans to test the system in reverse before the end of October, thus concluding the final stage of work on the facility.
The Komarno compressor station is used to transport gas across the border between Ukraine and Poland. The upgraded section has a designed capacity of 15 million cubic meters per day in the obverse mode and 18 million cubic meters per day in reverse mode from Poland.
On January 1, 2020, the 10-year transit contract between Naftogaz of Ukraine and Russia’s Gazprom will expire. In May, Russia and Ukraine began negotiating a new contract for gas transit through Ukrainian territory. The new contract would take effect at the start of 2020, but so far the two parties have been unable to agree on the terms.