Photo from UNIAN
Now the country buys more than 10 billion cubic meters of gas annually.
The strategic task of the Cabinet of Ministers is to drop any gas purchases from abroad and move to fully covering own needs, said Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman.
“We buy gas abroad. We have 15 billion cubic meters of state-owned gas, plus 5 billion is extracted by private companies, but they sell it at market prices. And we consume a total of 32 billion cubic meters. Even if we take the volume including with private gas, we need to extract at least 11 billion more to cover our needs not to buy gas abroad,” Groysman told Pryamiy TV channel.
As UNIAN reported earlier, the prime minister had previously stated that he was disappointed by the failure of National Joint-Stock Company Naftogaz of Ukraine to implement a plan to increase gas production until 2020.
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The 20/20 program envisages Ukraine’s largest gas producing company, Ukrgazvydobuvannya, increasing gas output to 20 billion cubic meters by 2020 due to the drilling of new wells and the intensification of production at existing sites.
However, the company faced the fact that it did not receive licenses for operating new gas fields, which significantly damaged the plan implementation.
According to CEO Oleh Prokhorenko, Ukrgazvydobuvannya in 2016-2018 applied for new licenses 170 times, while authorities granted them only 17 new special permits.
At the same time, he noted that the 20/20 program provides for the annual receipt of 15-20 new licenses.
Ukrgazvydobuvannya in 2018, compared with 2017, increased natural gas production by 1.6%, to 15.496 billion cubic meters.