KIEV, December 15. /TASS/. The natural gas volume in Ukraine’s underground storage facilities has fallen by 24.5%, or by 4.04 billion cubic meters, since the beginning of the heating season, Ukrstransgaz, the country’s gas pipelines and underground storage operator reported on Monday.

According to the company, if as of October 20 the natural gas volume in Ukraine’s underground storage facilities was 17.749 billion cubic meters, then by December 13 the reserves fell to 12 billion 645.32 million cubic meters. Ukraine began to take gas from the underground storage facilities on October 20, said Ukrtransgaz, a subsidiary of Ukraine’s national oil and gas company Naftogaz.

As of December 31, 2013, the gas volume in Ukraine’s underground storage facilities was 14.765 billion cubic meters, and as of April 1, 2014 - 7.202 billion cubic meters.

Naftogaz CEO Andrey Kobolev expressed the hope previously that Ukraine would be able to purchase Russian natural gas at less than $340 per 1,000 cubic meters.

After the discount that Russia’s natural gas giant Gazprom granted to Naftogaz upon the end of trilateral talks in Brussels on October 30, the price of gas the Russian corporation set for Ukraine totalled $378 per 1,000 cubic meters for the 4th quarter of 2014 and $365 for the first quarter of 2015. “We hope the price will be less than $340 already in the first quarter of the year under the contract we signed in the autumn in Brussels,” Kobolev said. “The price for Europe is much lower now and, quite possibly, it will be still lower.”.