KYIV: Ukrainian natural gas imports have increased so far in February thanks to higher supplies from Hungary, the head of Ukraine’s gas transmission system operator (GTSOU) Sergiy Makogon said on Saturday, even as consumption declines.

Makogon said on his Facebook page the daily volume of imports reached between 13.5 and 14 million cubic meters (mcm) per day so far this month.

He said this was a significant increase on a month before but gave no comparison figure. Ukraine imported a total of 44.8 mcm of gas in January, official data showed.

Ukraine receives an average of 5.5 mcm of gas per day from Hungary, 5 mcm from Slovakia, and some volume from Poland, Makogon added. He said a total of 162 mcm of gas had been imported since the beginning of February, and 218 mcm since the start of the year.

“Due to the unusually warm weather and the high cost of gas ... consumption in Ukraine has decreased significantly,” he said, adding that gas consumption had decreased to 106 mcm a day from 152 mcm a year ago.

Ukraine buys its gas from Western traders and has not imported gas directly from Russia since 2015, but its gas supply system is integrated into transit pipelines which export Russian gas through Ukrainian territory to Europe.