Ukraine's gas storage reserves fall to their lowest level in at least 11 years
Russian forces regularly attack Ukraine's energy infrastructure, leading to power and heat shortages across the country, as well as difficulties with natural gas storage.
Ukraine's underground storage facilities are currently using 19.4% of their capacity. Almost 32%, or 2.79 bcm, less gas is available in the storages than in the previous year, according to the estimates.
Meanwhile, pumping volumes in May 2025 are higher than in May last year. Since the beginning of the month, over 350 million cubic meters (mcm) of natural gas have been pumped into the storage facilities, which is 33% more than in the same period last year.
Since April 17, 2025, when the injection of natural gas into underground facilities began, 610 mcm of natural gas have been pumped, including 258 mcm in April. As a result, the total pumping volumes decreased to 26 mcm as of May 11.
As of the end of May 2025, gas reserves in Ukrainian underground facilities could reach almost 6.6 bcm with stable natural gas imports of about 14 mcm per day in recent days, according to ExPro Daily Gas.
Ukraine also continues to gradually restore natural gas production, which was damaged after numerous Russian attacks in February and March, the report read.
Russia attacked 34 facilities of Ukrgasvydobuvannya, Ukraine's largest gas producer and part of the state Naftogaz Group, last winter, leading to a loss of almost 50% of gas production, the company reported.
In March, Ukrgasvydobuvannya restored more than half of the production volumes lost because of the attacks.
Naftogaz also imported 800 mcm of gas and began restoring the damaged infrastructure to withstand the autumn and winter of 2024-2025 and compensate for losses.
Read also: 'Like a game of tennis' — Russia, Ukraine court Trump to avoid being blamed for peace talks failure
We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Boston Globe
23 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Trump's attack on in-state tuition for Dreamers is bad law — and worse policy
Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up Other surveys — by the Advertisement Among the targets of the administration's hostility, none elicits more sympathy from the public than the so‑called Dreamers — young people brought here unlawfully as children, who have grown up as Americans in everything but paperwork. (According to Gallup, Advertisement In lawsuits filed this spring against Texas, Minnesota, and Kentucky, the Justice Department maintains that offering in‑state tuition to students without legal immigration status — even if they were brought here as small children and essentially grew up American — violates federal law. In reality, it is the administration's assault that distorts federal law. It is also a brazen power grab that tramples states' rights, to say nothing of basic decency. Beginning in 2001, Democratic and Republican legislatures decided that if young people grow up in a state, are educated in its schools, and want to pursue higher education within its borders, it makes no sense to penalize them financially merely because of their immigration status. If there are good reasons to give a break on tuition to local students who want to go to a local college, what difference does it make whether they have a passport, a green card, or neither? Yet on April 28, President Trump Advertisement But that isn't true. Federal law does not say that undocumented immigrants must be excluded from any in-state tuition benefit. It Accordingly, the states that offer reduced tuition to undocumented immigrants condition the offer on criteria other than residency. States that offer in‑state tuition to undocumented students are acting not just humanely but rationally. Such policies reflect the common-sense principle that justifies giving a tuition break to any local student: It is in every state's interest to help its homegrown young people be as successful and well educated as possible. Lower tuition makes higher education more affordable, which in turn boosts the number of local families that can send their kids to college, which in turn expands the state's population of educated adults. A more educated population strengthens the state's economy, since college graduates are more likely to be employed and to earn higher incomes. For states like Massachusetts, which suffers from high outmigration, a particularly strong argument for the in-state tuition break is that graduates of public institutions are more likely to Advertisement None of these arguments has any logical connection to immigration or citizenship. They apply with equal force to those born abroad and to those born locally. And it is irrelevant whether those born abroad were brought to America by parents who had immigration visas or by parents who didn't. Dreamers aren't freeloaders. Like their families, they pay taxes — property taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, and even the payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare benefits, for which they are ineligible. (In 2022, according to the latest estimate from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, undocumented immigrants Aside from the Trumpian hard core, most Americans sympathize with the plight of undocumented immigrants who grew up in this country and have known no other home. That explains why (as Gallup reports) 85 percent of them would like Congress to make it possible for them to acquire citizenship. It also explains why in-state tuition for Dreamers has bipartisan support: The states that have enacted such policies include Oklahoma, Kentucky, California, and New York. Advertisement The Trump administration's lawsuits deserve to be dismissed on their legal merits, but they also deserve to be reviled as one more example of MAGA malevolence, which is grounded in nothing except a desire to hurt immigrants — Few Americans have any desire to punish young people who have done nothing wrong. The cruelty at the heart of Trump's immigration policy may thrill his base, but it repels a far larger America unwilling to abandon its values. Jeff Jacoby can be reached at


New York Times
24 minutes ago
- New York Times
After a Chaotic Start, a U.S. Attorney's Time May Be Running Out
Lawyers for Eliyahu Weinstein were faced with a difficult situation. After their client's 24-year sentence for investment fraud was commuted by President Trump in his first term, Mr. Weinstein was charged again with a similar crime by federal prosecutors in New Jersey and convicted at trial in late March. But his lawyers had a plan. They reached out to the state's newly installed U.S. attorney, Alina Habba, hoping to persuade her to push for an unusually light penalty, even though their client was a repeat felon. Ms. Habba granted them a rare private meeting to discuss the sentencing, which is scheduled for September, and she did not invite the prosecutors who had handled Mr. Weinstein's case, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The episode left members of her staff infuriated. A brash media personality and former personal lawyer to Mr. Trump, Ms. Habba is among the most high-profile of the new U.S. attorneys appointed by a president who has taken closer control of the Justice Department than any other in the past half century. She has made frequent media appearances and drawn attention for a series of notable investigations into Democratic political figures. Her tenure has also shattered morale inside the U.S. attorney's office and left many prosecutors looking for a way out, according to 16 close observers of the office who were interviewed for this article and spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Ms. Habba boasted, upon taking office, of her direct line to the White House, according to people with knowledge of her remarks, even as she has insisted that she is 'not political.' Prosecutors have chafed at her availability to defense lawyers. She disbanded the office's Civil Rights Division and killed the office's longest-running prosecution just days before it was scheduled to go to trial. Three framed pictures of herself now hang in a conference room named for a legendary New Jersey crime fighter, Frederick B. Lacey. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
34 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Coke's shift to cane sugar would be expensive, hurt US farmers
By Marcelo Teixeira, Karl Plume and Renee Hickman NEW YORK (Reuters) -A possible move by Coca-Cola , and other beverage and food industries, to use cane sugar instead of corn syrup as a sweetener would be difficult and expensive to implement, while mostly negative for farmers in the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Coca-Cola had agreed to use cane sugar in its beverages in the country after his discussions with the maker of the top soda pop brand. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and activists from his Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) campaign have been pushing for changes in ingredients used by the food and beverage industry, claiming the proposed substitutes are healthier. Kennedy has said the consumption of both sugar and high fructose corn syrup are unhealthy, and scientists say sugar presents some nutritional benefits over high fructose corn syrup. Coca-Cola already sells Coke made from cane sugar in other markets, including Mexico, and some U.S. grocery stores carry glass bottles with cane sugar labeled "Mexican" Coke. In response to Trump's comment, Coca-Cola said "more details on new innovative offerings within our Coca-Cola product range will be shared soon.' PepsiCo also said on Thursday it would use sugar in its products like Pepsi beverages if consumers want it. Industry analysts, however, said changes in the formulation of the rest of the Coke sold in the U.S., and other beverages and candies, would involve significant adjustments to companies' supply chains, since corn syrup and sugar come from different producers. It would also involve changes to product labeling, and cost more. "Food and beverage industries started to use corn syrup in the U.S. in the past because of costs. It is cheaper than sugar," said Ron Sterk, a senior editor at SOSland Publishing, an information provider for the ingredients industry in the U.S. He said the beverage industry uses 55% High Fructose Corn Syrup, or 55HFCS, while bakers use 42% HFCS. The Corn Refiners Association said the complete elimination of high fructose corn syrup from the U.S. food and beverage supply would cut corn prices by up to 34 cents a bushel, resulting in a loss of $5.1 billion in farm revenue. "The resulting economic shockwave would lead to rural job losses and significant economic consequences to communities across the country," CRA said. Agricultural processors such as Archer-Daniels-Midland and Ingredion, two of the largest HFCS producers, grind corn at mills dotted around the Midwest farm belt to produce corn sweetener and other goods like ethanol biofuel. Shares of both companies fell on Thursday. ADM is estimated to ship 4 billion to 4.5 billion pounds of high fructose corn syrup every year, accounting for roughly 6% to 7% of projected 2026 earnings, said analyst Heather Jones of Heather Jones Research. "If Coke were to shift the entirety of its HF55 usage to cane, the cost increase would very likely exceed $1 billion given the current price gap between HF55 and cane sugar and the probability of very large price increases for the latter," Jones said in a research note. To produce one pound of HFCS, the industry uses around 2.5 pounds of corn, so a large shift in corn syrup use in the U.S. would hurt demand for the cereal, hurting corn growers, while probably boosting imports of cane sugar since there is not enough produced in the U.S. to satisfy American consumers' sweet tooth. SUGAR DEFICIT Around 400 million bushels of corn are used annually to make corn syrup for drinks and other food products, representing around 2.5% of U.S. corn production, according to U.S. government data. The U.S. produces around 3.6 million metric tons of cane sugar per year, half of that in Trump's home state of Florida, compared with around 7.3 million tons of corn syrup. Trump's ongoing trade wars, however, would make it difficult to cover the deficit, sugar analyst Michael McDougall said. "It will most likely come from Brazil," he said, referring to the world's top cane sugar producer, "but Trump just hit Brazil with a 50% import tariff." Not only does cane sugar cost more, but Coca-Cola has independent bottlers with hundreds of facilities already designed for use with high fructose corn syrup, said James McDonnell, partner at CIL Management Consultants. A reformulation would require additional investments, said McDonnell, and it is unlikely that bottlers would want to eat the cost. Consumers will also balk at the added cost, he said, "and you thought they were angry at the price of eggs!" Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data