TRANSIT AND OTHER Gas games do not stop, and what about Bosnia and Herzegovina

Written by: Almir Bečarević

---

Gas games do not stop around the certification of Nord Stream 2. The hot-cold game is now garnished with statements by Belarusian officials about a complete halt of gas transit towards Europe, which would be a dangerous scenario for the games we have seen so far and where citizens would suffer. I call all this games because one detail that appeared in the media space provides answers to everything I wrote and tried to explain to Biseri Hadžialjević and the relevant minister Nermin Džindić. Since I was called out at a press conference in the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and did not respond, and it all boiled down to me being a graduate lawyer and not having the knowledge that this economist has, I now present the data: Gazprom has returned to gas transit through Ukraine.

“The daily transit volume through Ukraine has just returned to the contracted amount of 109 million cubic meters after falling to nearly 54 million cubic meters in mid-October.”

The current agreement between Russia and Ukraine, concluded for five years, provides for transit from 2020 to 2024 at 40 billion cubic meters per year. Moreover, Gazprom pays for capacities regardless of the actual transit volumes through the territory of the neighboring country.

In 2014, Ukraine transported 180 billion Sm3. Since 2019, between 40-60 billion Sm3 have been transported through Ukraine. These figures alone show that there was no real gas shortage in Europe because the Ukrainian transport system still has at least 150 billion Sm3 of free capacity, and this is proof that, if it wants, Gazprom can without any problem increase deliveries through Ukraine enough to supply half of Europe with gas regularly, regardless of LNG terminals, other gas pipelines, gas production, etc.

As we see, Moscow has fully returned to the contract and gas transit through Ukraine. This is enough for the experts from the press conference who persistently convinced the public that we were forced to switch to the TurkStream and thereby caused arbitration with Hungary, i.e., their transporter FGSZ, worth 21.1 million USD.

What is most important is the following statement from Moscow: “Western buyers will decide where to buy Russian gas.”

Does anyone here see any threat or see a stance: buy where you want and via the route you want. Due to the switch to TurkStream, an arbitration proceeding was initiated with FGSZ in the amount of 21.1 million USD.

Gas transit continues uninterrupted through Ukraine and has even been returned to contracted volumes, so experts of various professions presumably see everything that no one else sees.

They caused arbitration due to some ‘threat’ that never existed and led to arbitration that was announced to them by the author of this text. Bravo for the experts, and we will see about gas prices!