MOSCOW, November 9. /TASS/. Gazprom has approved and started executing the plan on gas pumping into five European underground gas storage facilities in November, the gas holding said in a statement on Tuesday.

"Gazprom has approved and started execution of the plan to pump gas into five European underground storage facilities in November. The volumes and routes of gas transportation have been defined," the statement said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has tasked Gazprom with increasing supplies to the company’s European underground storage facilities after completion of gas pumping into Russian storage facilities on November 8. Chief Executive Officer of the gas holding Aleksei Miller assured Gazprom would fulfill the task.

Gazprom has started actively pumping gas into its underground storage facilities in Europe again in recent days, according to the data provided by Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE). In particular, the company’s pumping into its European underground storage facilities almost reached 20% of the total volume of supply to storage facilities in the region on November 7.

Direct gas supplies via the Yamal-Europe pipeline to Germany were also resumed late on Monday, November 8, whereas by Tuesday morning they more than doubled.

Moreover, requests for transit gas deliveries through Ukraine to Slovakia on November 9 went up to almost 83 mln cubic meters per day from 75.22 mln cubic meters that were pumped via the gas distributing plant on the border of the two countries in the previous days, according to the data provided by the Slovakian gas transport operator Eustream.