Warm February allowed Ukraine to reduce gas imports, says Azarov

Warm weather in February 2013 allowed Ukraine to cut its imports of natural gas from Russia, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has said.

"We accumulated stocks of gas in underground storage facilities for winter. We assumed that the winter could be severe, as it was last winter… So, naturally, we saw that we could cut down on gas consumption. Why do we need extra amounts of gas? We can see our stocks, we can see that we can are [only] partially using our own stocks of gas," he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday.

According to the Ukrenergo national energy company, the average temperature in February 2013 was +0.1 Centigrade, while in February 2012 it was -9.6 Centigrade.