From the beginning of the year, 2.5 to 4 million cubic meters of gas flowed daily from Romania to Ukraine through the Isaccea point, and from April 1 to now these volumes are equal to zero, according to Transgaz interactive data.
In fact, April marks the end of transit gas exports to Ukraine via the Vertical Corridor.
The Vertical Corridor is not working again
Ukrainian traders bring gas from Greek ports on the Mediterranean, where U.S. gas tankers unload LNG, which is then regasified and piped to Ukraine via Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian and Moldovan pipelines.
This is the Vertical Corridor, a project actively supported by Washington that is intended to provide an alternative to Russian gas for the countries of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, with Ukraine leading the way as the country with the highest consumption in the region.
However, this project has not been able to transport significant volumes of gas, both because of technical limitations of transportation systems and because LNG is more expensive than natural gas and the cost of transportation increases its final price.
Even Ukraine continues to receive supplies mainly from Poland, with which it borders, so logistics are cheaper.
However, now we see that flows from the Vertical Corridor to Ukraine via Romania have completely stopped.
It is possible that the situation is temporary and flows will resume. This is all the more likely as gas is becoming an increasingly rare and expensive commodity, with the war in Iran paralyzing global flows and countries that possess gas becoming less willing to sell it, including for geopolitical reasons.
Everything is stable with Moldova
At the same time, gas exports to Moldova remain stable. On April 1, it amounted to 5.4 million cubic meters per day, on April 6, due to warming, the consumption decreased to 3.7 million cubic meters.
Transgaz emphasizes that Moldova is supplied exclusively with gas of Romanian origin (taking into account the fact that Russian blue fuel transits to Hungary through Romania).
