Ukraine ramps up European gas imports, reliant on Hungary, Poland and Slovakia

EU countries have delivered ca. 3.5 Bcm of gas to Ukraine in 2025 so far, with almost all the volumes coming from Hungary, Poland and Slovakia – Romania has also been delivering some volumes, especially recently, but these represent a much smaller share.

While flows have been ramping up throughout most of the year, the last two weeks have seen a reduction, which is mostly attributable to lower flows from Germany via Czechia and Slovakia.

The majority of this supply can be traced back to increased LNG imports in Poland, Germany and NW Europe, with higher sendout at Lithuania’s Klaipeda terminal also likely to have played a small role.

Exports to Ukraine have therefore represented a small addition to Europe’s LNG demand this year. They have however not been of such a magnitude to have a material impact on the overall European supply-demand balance so far. The impact has been more significant in those Eastern European markets that have delivered gas at the Ukrainian border, as some of the volume exported would have otherwise been injected in their storage sites, but this is still far from being enough to materially increase security of supply risks in those countries.

Nevertheless, Ukraine is steadily increasing its dependence on supplies via its EU neighbours. The evolution of these flows, especially during the winter, will be a key metric to track to understand the supply-demand balance of Eastern Europe, especially in cases in which supply or demand disruptions were to tighten the market.

Source: Giovanni Bettinelli