Public joint-stock company Ukrtransgaz has said that the company started providing natural gas storage services in 10 underground storage facilities during 1,095 days without paying taxes and customs duties.

The company's press service reported that this happened after the issue of order No. 45 by the Energy Customs Office of the State Fiscal Service on June 1, 2017. The company was permitted to open and use the customs warehouse on the basis of Ukrainian underground storage facilities.

"The creation of the warehouse makes it possible to store gas on the territory of Ukraine during 1,095 days without paying any taxes and customs duties by companies, including foreign ones, and further transport natural gas from Ukraine. Thus, all legal barriers for providing gas storage services to nonresidents have been removed in Ukrainian legislation," the company said.

The company said that in the past years Ukrainian gas storage facilities with a capacity of 31 billion cubic meters are loaded only by 50%. The operator of the Ukrainian gas transport system proposes to provide gas storage services to foreign traders, first of all, from neighbor countries where there is a lack of gas storage facilities: Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Moldova.

The press service said that some of these countries declared their plans to boost gas storage facilities which require large investment, while Ukraine today is ready to provide gas storage services at the smallest price in Europe – around EUR 0.4 per MW for the storage period.