Ukraine and Moldova enter winter better stocked, no less exposed

A year ago the question for Ukraine and Moldova was whether there would be enough gas. This August the question is different. Ukraine has more gas underground than at any point in five years, and Moldova has bought its winter supply before the season starts. What remains uncertain is whether Ukraine can keep producing the gas it needs while its fields are under attack, and what Moldova’s households will pay for gas that is now bought entirely at European prices. Transnistria, meanwhile, sits outside both answers.

Ukraine’s storage has recovered

Ukraine ended last winter badly depleted but not empty. Ukrtransgaz stopped withdrawals on 13 March 2026, and on 18 March storage stood at 16 per cent, compared with 3.5 per cent a year earlier, according to OSW. That gave this year’s injection season a head start that 2025 did not have.

The government set its goal in April. After a crisis committee approved the gas balance for 2026/27, Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal announced a target of 14.6 bcm in storage by the start of the heating season, with 13.2 bcm as the minimum requirement. He also warned that the coming winter would probably be as hard as the last. By mid-July, ExPro Consulting reported that storage held more than 13 bcm, the highest level in five years. The minimum was therefore close to being met with more than three months to go.

DiXi Group’s June outlook explains why the higher target still matters. Its baseline has Ukraine reaching 14.6 bcm by 1 November if damaged infrastructure is repaired quickly and injections average 35–40 mcm a day. If attacks continue and imports hold steady, but Ukraine cannot finance another 2–3 bcm of purchases, DiXi puts the outcome at 13.2–13.8 bcm. In its worst case, with more damage and European prices of €55–65/MWh, storage reaches only 12.3–13.3 bcm. Every one of these scenarios is above last year’s starting position. The spread between them comes down to production and money.

Production is the variable Russia is targeting

Ukraine produced 17.7 bcm of gas in 2025, 7 per cent less than the year before. The annual figure hides how sharp the individual shocks were. OSW records that output temporarily fell by 40 per cent after strikes in February 2025, and by 40–60 per cent after attacks on compressor stations in October. It counted 229 strikes on Naftogaz facilities during 2025.

This summer the pace has increased. On 17 August Naftogaz reported 13 attacks on its facilities in one week and 293 since the start of 2026, and said attack intensity had more than doubled compared with previous years. The company said some operations had been suspended and part of its output lost. The 2025 and 2026 counts may not be directly comparable, since one refers to Naftogaz facilities and the other to Group assets. Either way, the direction is clear.

This is why a strong July storage figure is less reassuring than it looks. Winter supply depends on storage plus daily production. A storage level that would be comfortable with production intact becomes tight if a large share of output is knocked out in January, as happened twice last year.

Imports are financed, mostly by others

Ukraine covered last year’s gap with imports. Net imports were 6.3 bcm in 2025, and another 1.9 bcm came in during January–March 2026. Naftogaz imported 5.5 bcm in 2025. OSW reports that about 70 per cent of this was paid for with grants and loans from the EBRD, the EIB, Norway and the United States. Hungary, Poland and Slovakia supplied almost all of it, and US LNG delivered via Orlen accounted for 600 mcm, with 1 bcm planned for 2026.

Donor money has kept the system supplied, but it has not kept Naftogaz healthy. The company’s net profit fell by 79 per cent in 2025, and its production arm, Ukrgasvydobuvannya, turned a 2024 profit of 52.7 billion hryvnias into a 5.5 billion loss. A producer losing money while under attack will find it harder to repair wells quickly. That weakens the assumption in DiXi’s baseline most exposed to events.

The market sends a mixed signal. In late July ExPro reported a draft plan to let producers export up to 15 per cent of monthly output, about 250–260 mcm a month, because Ukrainian gas was trading more than €20/MWh below European prices. A country preparing to export gas in August is not expecting a shortage. But the plan lets the government suspend exports immediately, which is a sensible hedge, and the price gap partly reflects weaker industrial demand. It does not mean supply is secure.

Moldova has bought early and is exposed to price

Moldova’s position has changed more than Ukraine’s. Russian deliveries through Ukraine ended on 1 January 2025. The right bank now buys all its gas on European markets through the state trader Energocom. By 13 August, Energocom had contracted about 76 per cent of its needs for the gas year beginning 1 October, including all of its heating-season demand from October to March: 3,832,693 MWh. It ran 24 tender rounds with 11 suppliers registered in eight European countries. Energocom must also hold 134.5 million cubic metres, 15 per cent of projected annual volume, in storage in neighbouring countries by 1 November.

The volume risk has largely been dealt with. The price risk has not. The contracts are forward agreements priced later against the TTF front-month index, so Moldovan consumers will pay whatever Europe pays this winter. Energocom itself says it is currently impossible to predict the winter tariff. For Moldova, a cold snap that pushes TTF higher becomes a problem for household budgets, not for supply.

Electricity follows the same logic. The energy ministry calculated in August that power from the Cuciurgan plant (MGRES) would now cost around €220/MWh, most of it the cost of gas. Energocom’s average purchase price in July was €133.86/MWh. The EU placed MGRES’s Russian owner, Inter RAO, under restrictive measures on 23 July. The old arrangement, in which Russian gas was burned in Transnistria to produce cheap power for Chișinău, is finished for commercial as well as political reasons.

Transnistria is the weak point

The left bank is the least secure part of the picture. Gas now reaches Transnistria from EU markets through Moldovagaz, whose mandate as designated supplier has been extended to 31 December 2026. According to Moldova’s energy ministry, the region receives about 2.5–3 mcm a day, compared with around 5.7 mcm before. That is enough to keep the region going. It is not enough for MGRES to supply both the region and the right bank.

Chișinău has tried to put a floor under this. In June it introduced a requirement that whoever supplies the region hold 15 per cent of average annual consumption in reserve. The figure is based on five years of data and excludes gas used to generate exported electricity. The same package raised the right bank’s strategic reserve from 50 to 56.3 million cubic metres, to be in place by 1 October. The Transnistrian reserve rests on an obligation over a territory Chișinău does not administer, supplied by a company whose authorisation runs out in the middle of the heating season. A five-year baseline also includes years when the region consumed far more than it does now. The requirement could therefore be too high to finance or too loose to test. Which one it turns out to be is the main thing to watch.

What to watch

For Ukraine, the storage figure matters less over the next two months than daily production after each strike, and whether new donor money arrives before the first cold spell rather than during it. The export plan is worth watching as a signal: if it is adopted and not suspended, Kyiv is confident about production. For Moldova, watch the TTF curve and the first regulated tariff decision of the season. On the left bank, watch whether the reserve is actually built by November and who is named to supply the region after 31 December. Both countries are in better shape than they were a year ago. Neither has removed the risks that made last winter dangerous.

Sources

• OSW Centre for Eastern Studies — Racing against the next winter: Ukraine’s energy sector after the heating season, 7 April 2026
• Interfax — Ukraine plans to accumulate 14.6 bcm of gas by start of 2026-2027 autumn-winter season, 9 April 2026
• Mezha — DiXi Group predicts Ukraine will fill 14.6 bcm of gas storage before 2026 winter, 9 June 2026
• ExPro Consulting — Ukraine plans to partially resume gas exports, 27 July 2026
• Naftogaz — Russia attacks Naftogaz Group facilities 13 times in one week, 17 August 2026
• Logos Press — Energocom has signed contracts to cover 76% of its gas needs for the 2026–2027 gas year, 13 August 2026
• Logos Press — A mandatory 15% gas reserve has been introduced for the left bank of the Dniester, 11 June 2026
• ProTV Chișinău — Moldovan Ministry of Energy on why electricity is no longer bought from MGRES, 14 August 2026