In Ukraine, they fear that the upcoming heating season in the country may be complicated due to low coal reserves in the warehouses of heat-generating companies and ongoing disputes with Gazprom. This was after a meeting of Vladimir Zelensky with members of the Cabinet on the situation on the electricity market, said Presidential Representative in the Government Andrei Gerus.

“There is a situation where we have a fairly low accumulation of coal in warehouses,” Gerus said at a briefing, adding that reserves are now 40% less than in 2018.

“We had a difficult discussion with thermal generation companies, in particular large ones, and emphasized that it is impossible to use coal reserves in warehouses as a way of blackmail in order to obtain high tariffs. We would like this to not be repeated and that the companies keep sufficient volumes of coal in warehouses, ”emphasized the representative of Zelensky.

Gerus expressed concern that the upcoming winter season will also be “difficult” due to existing disputes with the Russian company Gazprom over gas transit. The specialist believes that this factor may affect the Ukrainian blue fuel market.

Note that on June 1, a ban on the supply of oil products, oil and coal from Russia to Ukraine came into force. As Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev noted, these measures were introduced in response to the sanctions of Kiev. According to early August, Russian coal supplies to Ukraine in June fell 85%.

Thus, according to the Kommersant newspaper, citing data from the Central Dispatch Office of the Fuel and Energy Complex, Russian coal exports to Ukraine decreased in June compared to the same month of 2018 by 85.3% (750 thousand tons) to 129 , 3 thousand tons.

Against this background, the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine reported that as of August 19, coal reserves in the warehouses of thermal power plants of Ukrainian energy generating companies fell by 46% compared to last year. We are talking about 753.4 thousand tons of coal, which is 639.2 thousand tons less than reserves in the same period of 2018.

Naftogaz warns

Prior to Gerus's statements about the possible difficulties of the upcoming heating season in Ukraine, Naftogaz said. In recent months, company representatives have repeatedly talked about individual settlements in Ukraine, which in winter may be left without heating.

In particular, Naftogaz mentioned the urban-type village of Rogan in the Kharkov region, whose debts for gas supply reached 11.7 million hryvnias. In early August, the company announced the threat of a breakdown in the heating season in Odessa, also due to debt.

According to the press service of Naftogaz, the total debt of JSC Odessa TPP and KP Heat Supply of the City of Odessa reached almost 1.7 billion hryvnias.

In July, Naftogaz warned of possible problems with the heating season in the city of Smela, Cherkasy region. According to the company, the local company Smilakomunteploenergo owes 80.8 million hryvnias to Naftogaz.

Recall that for several years Ukraine has not directly purchased gas from Russia, carrying out the so-called reverse supplies of blue fuel. Experts have repeatedly noted that behind this wording lies the resale to Kiev of Russian gas at a higher price.

A gas transit contract is in effect between Russia and Ukraine, but this agreement expires on January 1, 2020 and there is no new agreement yet. The Russian side at the end of July proposed to extend the contract on current conditions, as well as discuss the issue of resuming direct gas purchases. This was stated by the head of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation Alexander Novak.

“We will wait until the trilateral consultations begin, when a new government (Ukraine. - RT ) is elected and counterparties appear. In general, we are for Ukraine to buy gas directly. We invited our colleagues to extend the existing contract on existing conditions, ”he said.

Commenting on the current situation, political scientist and economist Alexander Dudchak noted that such problems can always be solved through dialogue. However, he believes that the situation will continue to be difficult.

“Judging by how Russia behaved in previous years, despite the sometimes boorish behavior of Ukrainian partners, Russia calmly reacted to all the tricks and approached pragmatically,” the source said.

In his opinion, the further development of events depends on how the Ukrainian side will behave and whether it will have a pragmatic approach.

“We can only assume that Russia has never closed the possibility of negotiations, and it is ready for this,” the expert concluded.

In turn, economist Alexander Okhrimenko is of the opinion that the current situation is very politicized and neglected. According to the expert, the Ukrainian leadership is more occupied with politics than economics, but to solve current problems it is necessary to speak about the economy.

“They have a lot of different political issues, from the constitution to the questions of international cooperation. There is constant talk of friendship between countries, of friendship with the United States. Now there is such a situation when the new leadership of the country is not fashionable to talk about the economy of Ukraine. I don’t see a desire to prepare for winter, ”the expert said in a conversation with RT.