Ukraine has warned Austria that it does not plan to extend the gas transit contract, DW economic expert Andriy Gurkov said. He notes that the Ukrainian route mainly serves Austria, with some small gas volumes that ship to Hungary and Italy.
Therefore, the Austrian OMV company has already reserved transit capacity to supply Norwegian gas and LNG as well as gas from Italian terminals. Moreover, the Austrian company decided to develop another gas mining field in the Romanian Black Sea territory.
In December 2019, Naftogaz of Ukraine and the Operator of the GTS of Ukraine and Gazprom signed an agreement for the transit of Russian gas to Europe through Ukrainian territory beginning in 2020. According to this contract, the volume of transit in 2020 was 65 billion cubic meters, and in 2021-2024, 40 billion cubic meters.