BRUSSELS, June 25. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukraine proposes the EU to launch a pattern of grand reversed supplies of natural gas via Slovakia in the amount of up to 30 billion cubic meters a year, Yuriy Prodan, Ukraine’s Minister of Energy and Coalmines said Wednesday upon arrival in Brussels for a meeting with EU Energy Commissioner, Guenther Oettinger.

He said the amounts of reserved supplies would hopefully stand at around 30 billion cubic meters a year.

“We’ve signed a memorandum spelling out the maximum volumes of lesser reversed supplies, of up to 22 million cubic meters a day but there’s also the so-called grand reverse deliveries that can provide up to 30 billion cubic meters a year,” Prodan said.

Guenther Oettinger’s secretary Sabina Berger said somewhat earlier Ukraine could hope for the reversed supplies of a maximum of 8 billion cubic meters of gas, which was roughly the amount of lesser reversed supplies.

She also said the EU was not in charge of appointing a price for these supplies and the issue was within the sphere of competence of the energy corporations that had signed the supplies agreement.

Berger recalled that the European Commission would work to ensure the reversed deliveries of 8 billion cubic meters of gas annually (via Slovakia to Ukraine) in line with a memorandum of mutual understanding, which Ukraine and Slovakia signed April 24.

As for the idea of grand supplies, there are no practical agreements to support it today since Slovakia will have to agree to a reversed throughput of gas through a trunk pipeline, that this is something the Slovak government is not prepared to do at the moment.

For the smaller supplies, Slovakia uses a smaller local pipeline called Vojany.

In 2013, consumption of gas in Ukraine stood at around 50 billion cubic meters.

According to Russia’s Ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, the reversed deliveries of gas will not help resolve Ukraine’s problems in the gas sector.

“In the first place, one thin local thread will be capable of meeting only an insignificant part of Ukraine’s demand for gas,” he said adding that the utilization of the Vojany pipeline in Slovakia was also possible.

It is believed that the EU will supply to Ukraine the excessive resources of the German energy corporation RWE.

“RWE has underground storage facilities and excessive amounts of the gas it purchased previously,” Chizhov said. “The bulk of that gas is from Russia but some amounts were purchased from Norway and the Netherlands. In other words, the Germans have a gas cocktail.”

“The very fact the company accumulated excesses of gas is linked to the financial and economic crisis in Europe, in the light of which consumption of fuels in Europe fell,” he said. “Still, that’s good for the summertime but given the inevitable arrival of winter, the excessive amounts of gas may simply vanish,” Chizhov said.

“And how much the reversed supplies of gas will cost is an open question but I daresay Kiev won’t find it much cheaper that the Russian gas,” he said.

Yuriy Prodan added that Ukraine had very few chances, if at all, of filling its underground storages with 20 billion cubic meters of gas.

“The current situation as it is, there is no way of coping with this task. However, that can be done by the beginning of the winter season,” he added.

This is precisely the amount of gas, says the European Commission that Ukraine will need for meeting the winter demand and guarantee uninterrupted transit of gas to the EU countries.