Ukraine will be fully independent of Russian natural gas by 2017, judging by the pace of recent reforms to the coun- try’s energy sector, President Petro Poroshenko says. “Six years ago, Ukraine’s supply was 70bn m~3 of gas and now is only 40bn m3. Much of this was achieved in the last year, and… in two years we simply will not need Russian gas,” Poroshenko says. Ukraine has over the past year estab- lished “solid reverse gas flows” from EU countries, he says. It can now receive gas by pipeline from Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, as well as Russia. Overall supply from EU member states rose to 5.1bn m~3 last year from 2.1bn m~3 in 2013. Russian imports fell by 45pc to 14.5bn m~3 (WPA, 16 January, p9).
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