Natural gas to flow through Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- Natural gas will flow uninterrupted from Russia to Europe now that Ukraine has finished pumping gas into underground storage facilities, officials said Monday.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said Ukraine is ready to stop the pumping, even though 33.3 billion cubic yards were pumped into the facilities -- rather than the 35.3 billion cubic yards originally projected to be needed to get through the winter months, RIA Novosti reported.

The storage facilities have a total capacity of 41.8 billion cubic yards.

Russia supplies about one quarter of Europe's national gas but it briefly shut down the supplies through Ukraine's pipeline system during a dispute over new gas prices and Kiev's debt that surfaced at the beginning of the year. The conflict was resolved in January.

About 80 percent of the Russian gas that goes to Europe passes through Ukraine.