According to the country’s authorities, the discount for transit services through the so-called Vertical Gas Corridor (VGC) has been increased to 90%.
This refers to the transportation of gas through the infrastructure of Vestmoldtransgaz on the Trans-Balkan gas corridor section. Earlier, in October 2025, Moldova already provided a 50% discount for transit. The operators of the gas transportation systems of Greece, Bulgaria and Romania also introduced similar privileges.
The reduction in tariffs was part of coordinated measures by the countries of the region to make the gas supply route to Ukraine and Central Europe more attractive.
No demand
The new tariffs will come into force on October 1. In the meantime, they do not seem to be needed, as Ukraine has no plans to import gas for the third month in a row, including through the Vertical Gas Corridor, which is the most unused supply route.
At least, this can be judged by the latest monthly auctions on the Hungarian RBP platform.
Thus, the auctions for booking interconnector capacity on the border from Hungary, Slovakia and Romania for June ended with nothing, as there were no bidders.
A similar story happened with the Vertical Gas Corridor from Greece through Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova to Ukraine. Three routes were offered: 2 million cubic meters per day from the Revitus terminal, 4.8 million cubic meters from the Alexandroupolis terminal and 4.8 million cubic meters from the Southern Gas Corridor, which carries Azeri gas. In each case, no capacity reservation requests were submitted.
Thus, June may become the third month when Ukraine essentially stopped importing gas. According to the Ukrainian GTS Operator, only 45 million cubic meters were supplied to the country from April 1 to May 26. On the one hand, the country’s current production is enough to fill the storage facilities according to the government’s plans. On the other hand, due to the Iranian war, prices have risen and Naftohaz has run out of credit funds that European donors allocated for the purchase of fuel.
Why is this happening?
All 3 gas supply routes are not yet in high demand for a number of reasons:
– Ukraine’s compressor and gas metering stations are subject to UAV attacks;
– high cost of transportation via VGC, which is much higher than the price of supplies from European countries to Romania and further to Moldova and Ukraine;
– low throughput capacity at the entrance to the Ukrainian GTS (about 3 mln m3/day against almost 60 mln m3/day from the western direction as a whole, including up to 42 mln m3/day from Slovakia, 9.75 mln m3/day from Hungary, 6 mln m3/day from Poland).
Thus, it is obvious that the project is highly dependent on attracting long-term contracts and the interest of energy companies. In practice, there is low business interest in the operation of the corridor. According to experts’ estimates, taking into account infrastructural limitations, the potential for supplies through the VGC is about 5 billion m3/year.
However, there is a reason why the project continues. It is that the Vertical Corridor is to supply US LNG from Greece. Accordingly, the discounts of the other operators, except Vestmoldtransgaz, may soon reach 90% as well. Politics trumps economics.
