Slovakia's Eustream offers additional Velke exit capacity for Q3

London — Slovakia's gas transportation system operator Eustream said June 29 it is offering extra interruptible transmission capacity at the Velke Kapusany exit point, in the direction Slovakia to Ukraine.

The announcement comes after Ukraine's GTSOU announced a seven-week maintenance plan at the Budince interconnection point, which is also on the Slovakia-Ukraine border and which is currently used by traders to send gas into Ukraine's storage facilities.

Capacity of 60 million cu m/d will be offered for the period from July 1 to October 1, Eustream said in a note.

"Please note that capacity at exit point Velke Kapusany is fully interruptible and dependent on the physical flow from Ukraine to Slovakia," the TSO added.

The offering of extra interruptible capacity at Velke Kapusany was one of the two solutions suggested by GTSOU to compensate for missing firm capacity at Budince during the maintenance period, with the second solution being the merger of Budince and Velke into one single Virtual Interconnection Point.

In a previous note, Eustream complained about the short notice given by GTSOU in announcing the maintenance plan and also questioned the need to carry out these works in the middle of the injection season, which has triggered an increase of gas flows from Slovakia towards Ukraine via Budince.

Eustream had already increased the available interruptible capacity for the July-September period at the Velke Kapusany exit point to 10 million cu m/d from 7 million cu m/d on June 11, as all the firm and interruptible capacity offered at Budince was sold out.