Hungary and other European countries are reverse-pumping Russian gas to Ukraine in record quantities

© Reuters / Laszlo Balogh

Gas supplies from Hungary to Ukraine have increased tenfold to a record 7.4 million cubic meters per day on Monday, up sharply from 720,000 cubic meters per day on March 7-12, the Ukrainian gas transportation network operator Ukrtransgaz said.

Ukrtransgaz said in a statement on its website on Monday. Ukraine's has imported 52 million cubic meters from Hungary in the first half of March, the operator added. Last year, Ukraine imported 600 million cubic meters of gas from Hungary.

The statistics from Naftogaz come at a time when Ukraine is seeking to diversify away from Russian supplies. The new gas conflict with Moscow could trigger another cut-off. Meanwhile, Kiev says it's going to cut imports from Russia to zero and buy gas in reverse schemes from other western countries like Slovakia and Poland. Last week, President Petro Poroshenko blamed Russia for charging Ukraine 15 percent more for its gas than the countries in Europe and said he would get gas in reverse supplies from Europe at $245 per 1,000 cubic meters.

Ukraine, where the economy is in a full-blown crisis, now pays for Russian gas in small tranches. The last one - $15 million - was made on March 6 and is supposed to last through March 15, but since then, Gazprom has not received any new payments.

Comment: Kiev's problem here is that Russia continues to support the rebel Donetsk and Luhansk regions with additional gas deliveries for humanitarian reasons, but is reluctant to pay for that "unauthorized" gas:

, March 2nd

The agreement, following talks between the two ministers in Brussels, doesn't resolve the question of who will ultimately pay for gas delivered by Gazprom to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions but not authorized by Naftogaz. Russia has been backing the rebels in those regions. [..]

Naftogaz had complained in recent weeks that Gazprom had unilaterally cut deliveries and that damage to pipelines in territory controlled by pro-Russian rebels prevented it from verifying deliveries there. Gazprom, meanwhile, warned that a failure by Naftogaz to prepay for agreed volumes could leave Ukraine—and the EU—without fresh gas within days. It said that it had continued supplies to Donetsk and Luhansk for humanitarian reasons.

163.3 million cubic meters was pumped to Ukraine from Hungary in January and February. Gas from western markets - through Austria - is only transferred, if Ukraine pays for it. German leader Angela Merkel repeatedly thanked Hungarian PM Orban for these gas transits when she recently met him.

portfolio.hu, February 23rd

The Hungarian Prime Minister added that his country (western neighbor of Ukraine) can only sell gas to Ukraine that it has bought on the spot market, through Austria's gas hub. "," according to the , he said, "."

"," Orbán added.

Asked about the compatibility of this agreement with EU regulations, the spokeswoman responded: "."

Itkonen noted that the EC does not have all the details to Hungary's new contract with Russia, under which it cannot re-sell gas received from Russia's Gazprom to Ukraine, but the EU executive will look into these "other contracts".

No, these are not 'legally sound' - they're illegal. But because they're screwing over Russia, double standards apply, so it's apparently ok to break all the rules they would otherwise impose on 'developing countries'.