10.06.2026
On June 9, the Europe-Ukraine Energy Trading Forum 2026: Recovery, Market Coupling & New Trading Frontiers, organized by the Energy Club, took place in Budapest. The event became an international platform for discussing the transformation of the Ukrainian energy market, new trading opportunities, the development of distributed generation, energy storage systems, the role of Ukrainian gas storage facilities, and integration with European energy markets.
Within the framework of the forum, Energy Club journalist Olena Karpachova spoke with Willem Coppoolse, Director of the ERU Group. In the interview, he shared his assessment of the attractiveness of the Ukrainian market for European traders, spoke about changes in the gas market after the cessation of Russian gas transit, the prospects for Ukrainian underground gas storage facilities, and Ukraine’s role in the new regional energy logistics. The interviewee paid special attention to the development of biomethane, battery energy storage systems (BESS), issues of trust and regulatory predictability, which today significantly influence the decisions of international investors and energy market participants.
– Willem, looking at the Ukrainian market through the eyes of an international trader, what major changes over the past year and a half have made it more interesting or, conversely, more difficult for European companies?
– The main reason that most EU companies have lost interest is a general change in the market: the lack of storage spreads due mainly to LNG, which is predominant in EU supply. LNG is floating storage. Other reasons are since 3 months the high prices on the spot up to Q1 next year due to the war in Iran, and also increasing transportation costs.
And now we have the EU regulation on Russian gas, that as a friendly fire now almost blocks the sale of CWR gas, stored in Ukraine and shipped from one EU country to be sold in another EU country. And there is the methane regulation that will also be very complicated to be compliant with for Ukrainian storage and transportation.
So most EU traders, except the ones that have a trading business on the UA market, do not look at Ukraine right now, theironly question is: will Naftogaz buy or not.
– Ukraine has now been operating without the transit of Russian gas for more than a year. How do you think this has changed the map of gas flows in Central and Eastern Europe?
– It changed gradually since 2020 in fact already, accelerated after the full-scale war started and major offtakers like Uniper, Engie and others also interrupted their contracts, tand now we are in a almost 3rd or 4th phase where you have only some flow still through Turkstream to Serbia-Hungary-Slovakia who make a chain, so countries are adapting and for Hungary the combination of Peter Magyar and Neptune appeared very fast and will be the perfect saviour scenario of course. I guess Slovakia will also try to get a chunk but total Slovakia consumption is less than Ukrainian chemistry and steel industry.
– Can we already speak of Ukraine’s gas transmission system as part of a new regional logistics network for gas from LNG terminals and the Southern Gas Corridor, or is this still more potential than reality?
– Unfortunately Ukraine is now more and more at the utmost outskirt of the European and even East European gas system, and it looks like it will be only a consumption destinatin, especially of course while the war is ongoing and export is forbidden. Unfortunately Hungarians, Slovaks and Poles built interconnections in the last ten years, otherwise Uzhgorod could have been the perfect hub with no investment, but the Ukrainian reforms came too late and there was not enough trust and integration to use the Ukrainian system as an interconnector.
– What role could Ukrainian underground gas storage facilities play for European traders in the coming years? What does the market need for interest in UGS to be stable rather than only occasional?
– I’m quite pessimistic. Considering the transportation cost, lower spreads due to LNG, the UA UGS should focus on playing a role in the three neighbouring countries that have low storage capacity: Poland, Moldova and Romania. Hungary and Slovakia have large storage capacities so they will compete and it is already not sure that they will be fully used. Moldova has no storage and cannot obtain capacity in Romania, so they will need to store some volumes in UA but it is a very small market and there needs are even smaller. Poland will need some volumes but they have LNG and ample capacity from Germany, so not sure it will be possible to compete considering high and non-seasonal transportation tariffs, and Romania is protecting its market so strongly that they will not open their market to UA storage volumes.
So the main thing to do is to finally start the downsizing of UA storage from 30 to about 14-15 BCM, a study that was made almost 10 years ago by McKinsey and Gaz de France is a very good footprint for that. The whole UA gas infrastructure needs to be downsized: distribution where you have 1000s of km of pipes that serve very little customers and only in winter, and also the transportation network. Biomethane, like in France, can help to maintain gas in some areas but in others the best would be just to get rid of gas and convert people to electricity, solar panels and heat pumps.
– After the strikes on infrastructure, the issue of trust in Ukrainian underground gas storage has become especially sensitive. To what extent do you think the market has already returned to a pragmatic assessment of Ukrainian storage facilities, and to what extent does the risk factor still dominate?
– The market sees there is no spread, that has nothing to with the war. If there was a spread, then the market would consider, ok do I need a 5 Euro or 8 euro or 10 euro spread to conver the risk. But today there is zero spread or sometimes even negative. So the pragmatic assessment is that it not even worth to spend a second on considering.
– You have worked in international energy companies, at Naftogaz, and now at ERU. What are the main differences you see between the approach of European companies to trading and the way energy trading in Ukraine is still often perceived?
– All three are very different.
EU companies are very rational and in general prudent in their risk assessment, lots of people checking but you have some entreneurship and risk taking if the margins are good. They have cheap money, so when there is a good reward like in 2023-2024 they even store in Ukraine
Naftogaz is not a company, it is the state gas corporation that has a strong industrial culture on one side, and the political responsibility of supplying gas, or in fact heated homes and food, to the people of Ukraine, at any cost, especially in this war time. Normally, NAK does its job in the regulated market, and lets the ‘private’ market quiet. But now and then, when the situation is a bit more relaxed, or the company needs cash, managers in Naftogaz think they are a company, or even a trading company, and I was there in such a time. NAK needed cash, we went into the industrial market, trying not to disturb too much, and started the retail market, which was new. But then something happens (in my case it was market prices going up due to Gazprom pre-war market manipulation, and then Andrei Kobolev finally kicked out after so many years). Or the company needs cash and then Naftogaz goes into the ‘private market’.
So much less rational, very political, still quite strong pyramidal decision making mainly by the CEO. But it is a great corporation and I’m proud to have worked there
And then there is a small private company with two private owners, one of which is the CEO. It’s much faster, much more focused on cash since we do not have almost unlimited capital like in the big EU trading companies, be more selective, there are no armies of analysts etc.. But it is fun, the main problem is that the team is in Kyiv and, even though I’m going now and then, it is not the same to manage at a distrance.
– Speaking about market coupling more broadly, how does the convergence of the Ukrainian and European electricity markets affect the way energy traders operate when they look at both gas and electricity at the same time?
– They remain very different markets, and market coupling only goes one way. Due to CBAM the export coupling from UA to EU is killed.
– One of the forum’s themes is recovery as business. Where do you think the line lies today between reconstruction as a political task and reconstruction as a real commercial opportunity for the market?
– I honestly do not know. What I know is that we have been looking at power generation projects during the war, but that our conclusion each time is that you cannot fight municipal or state companies like EKU whom are granted units and equipment for free or very cheap, and compete on the market with them.
– To what extent are the development of distributed gas generation and BESS in Ukraine already creating new products or trading opportunities, rather than just new technical solutions?
– We are a trading company, not a grid company or technical service company. But we need to speed up and become a player in the BESS market, we have a big balancing group in Ukraine and a good trading team, and it is clear there are opportunities and some players who invested in BESS for the ancillary market have done well.
– Biomethane is increasingly being called one of Ukraine’s new export directions. You have already commented on ERU’s first steps in this area. What is the main priority today: building the physical export infrastructure or building trust in Ukrainian biomethane as a fully commercial product?
– Building trust, I think Ukrainians strongly underestimate the importance of trust and compliance.
– Looking at the Ukrainian energy market from the perspective of a foreign investor or trader, what currently seems to be the bigger challenge: war risk or the unpredictability of the regulatory environment?
– War risk is unfortunately almost more predictable. It is difficult to criticize the difficult task of lawmakers and ministers, but…
– How do you assess the outlook for the emergence in Ukraine of more transparent and liquid long-term instruments — for example, products based on gas storage, corporate PPAs, or other structured market solutions?
– The BESS auction was successful, replied to a real need and proves this can work, but in general it is very difficult.
The quality of the regulatory environment, the transparency of the rules of the game, and the level of trust in the market remain decisive factors for the development of the Ukrainian energy sector. These aspects, according to Willem Coppoolse, will largely influence how successfully the country can realize its potential in the coming years. Investors and traders primarily assess project economics, risk levels, and trust in market rules. At the same time, the development of BESS, biomethane, and further integration with European markets indicate that Ukraine retains the potential for new trading opportunities. The key challenge remains transforming this potential into clear and commercially attractive instruments capable of attracting capital even amidst wartime challenges and high competition in the European energy market.
