Ukraine gas imports to rise 10% on Thursday, data shows

KYIV, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Ukraine will increase gas imports by 10% on Thursday to almost 25 million cubic meters, data provided by the operator of gas transmission systems showed, after Russian missile attacks damaged Ukrainian gas production facilities earlier this week.

Ukraine's state-run oil and gas firm Naftogaz and private energy company DTEK said gas production facilities were damaged on Tuesday in a Russian attack on the central Poltava region.

The operator data showed that on Thursday 9.8 mcm of gas would come from Hungary, 11.6 mcm from Slovakia and 3.5 mcm from Poland. Ukraine started increasing its gas imports at the beginning of February and the volumes since then have increased almost 10-fold.

A senior Ukrainian energy official said on Wednesday that Ukraine had called on its allies to help it buy more natural gas as it moved to increase gas imports.

Ukraine Energy Minister German Galushchenko had already told Interfax Ukraine news agency last week that the country could need to import around a billion cubic metres of gas during the current heating season.

Ukraine, which has not directly bought Russian gas since 2015, imports gas from the European Union. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy also said last week the country was willing to store liquefied natural gas from the United States in its underground storage facilities.

Ukraine consumes on average between 110 and 140 mcm of gas a day in winter, covered almost equally by domestic gas production and reserves from storage facilities. Ukraine mainly uses gas to heat homes and for cooking.

Temperatures on Thursday morning in most regions of Ukraine were still around minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) and gas consumption, according to analysts' estimates, may total near 150 mcm.