Gas production in Ukraine declined in July after a sharp increase in June / Photo from lenta-ua.net
Ukraine cut production of natural gas by 9.7% in July 2015 from June 2015, to 1.6 billion cubic meters (bcm), the State Statistics Service reported.
Gas output in July 2015 year-over-year fell by 6.3%.
The steep decline in gas production in July was seen after a sharp increase in gas output in June, when Ukraine produced 1.8 bcm, which was a record high since the beginning of the year (9% from May 2015).
January through July 2015, Ukraine produced 11.3 bcm, which was 2.3% down year-over-year. The data doesn't cover the Russian-annexed Crimea.
As UNIAN reported earlier, natural gas production in Ukraine in 2014 fell by 3.4% from 2013, to 19.7 bcm.
In July 2015, Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers asked the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, to consider the possibility of halving gas royalties as of October 2015.
In particular, the Finance Ministry proposes reducing royalties for commercial gas production from 55% to 29% (with the well depth being less than 5 km) and from 28% to 14% (for deeper wells) from October 1, 2015. The ministry suggests introducing even lower royalties for gas extraction from 2018, fixing them at 20% and 10% depending on the depth of wells.