Last week, at the initiative of the Association of the Gas Producers of Ukraine, a working meeting in PJSC Ukrtransgaz took place, including technical specialists from NJSC NaftoGaz of Ukraine, PJSC UkrGazVydobuvannya, and other members of the Association with the purpose of discussing relevant to gas quality issues.

To remind, in September of 2015 the National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission has approved by its ruling the changes to the Gas Transportation System Code. The new Code sets new requirements for the quality of gas and gas meters, coming into force starting April 1^st, 2016. As of today, none of the gas producing companies can fully meet the new requirements without performing substantial modernizing of their production capacities and building new facilities for natural gas preparation. According to the GTS Code, starting April of this year, penalties for gas not meeting the physicochemical parameters (PCP) have come into force. In particular, state-owned company UkrGazVydobuvannya must pay 2 million Ukrainian hryvnia of penalties monthly, an amount, which will double in July.

As of today, the GTS regulator and operator are holding a constructive debate regarding updates and changes to the GTS Code, which are related to the PCP standards and risk minimization of producers’ gas entering the UkrTransGaz system.

The parties have agreed to as soon as possible jointly work out the amendments to the Code in part of:

- clear definition of the situations, in which the operator has the right to deny the producer’s access to the GTS;

- formulation of the ranges for the parameters of the natural gas components;

- introduction of the transition period for implementation of certain provisions through the penalty coefficients adjustment;

- requirements of UkrTransGaz regarding installing the chromotographs only on wells with certain debit (e. g., not less than 50 thousand cubic meters per day).