diff --git a/pandas/compat/numpy/__init__.py b/pandas/compat/numpy/__init__.py
index cb8ad5e3ea46f..a6f586c7f2638 100644
--- a/pandas/compat/numpy/__init__.py
+++ b/pandas/compat/numpy/__init__.py
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@
 _np_version_under1p14 = _nlv < LooseVersion('1.14')
 _np_version_under1p15 = _nlv < LooseVersion('1.15')
 
+
 if _nlv < '1.9':
     raise ImportError('this version of pandas is incompatible with '
                       'numpy < 1.9.0\n'
diff --git a/pandas/tests/io/test_pytables.py b/pandas/tests/io/test_pytables.py
index 99c3c659e9b4d..ddcfcc0842d1a 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/io/test_pytables.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/io/test_pytables.py
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
 from pandas import (Series, DataFrame, Panel, MultiIndex, Int64Index,
                     RangeIndex, Categorical, bdate_range,
                     date_range, timedelta_range, Index, DatetimeIndex,
-                    isna, compat, concat, Timestamp, _np_version_under1p15)
+                    isna, compat, concat, Timestamp)
 
 import pandas.util.testing as tm
 import pandas.util._test_decorators as td
@@ -2192,9 +2192,9 @@ def test_unimplemented_dtypes_table_columns(self):
             pytest.raises(TypeError, store.append, 'df_unimplemented', df)
 
     @pytest.mark.skipif(
-        not _np_version_under1p15,
-        reason=("pytables conda build package needs build "
-                "with numpy 1.15: gh-22098"))
+        LooseVersion(np.__version__) == LooseVersion('1.15.0'),
+        reason=("Skipping  pytables test when numpy version is "
+                "exactly equal to 1.15.0: gh-22098"))
     def test_calendar_roundtrip_issue(self):
 
         # 8591