KYIV, Jan 19 – Ukraine has steeply accelerated use of natural gas from its underground gas storage facilities in reaction to freezing air temperatures across the country over the past two days, Ukrtransgaz, which operates the facilities, reported.

Ukraine was withdrawing 122.5 million cubic meters/day of gas on January 17, up from 72.6 million cu m/day a week ago, Ukrtransgaz reported. This is the largest withdrawals of gas in the past 12 months, and this happened only twice over the past five years.