CIS

Home page

CIS

Ukraine to focus on boosting domestic gas production: PM

06 September 2012 17:15 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Ukraine is placing high priority on further increasing its natural gas production in an attempt to wean itself from costly Russian gas, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Thursday, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

"Projects aimed at increasing the hydrocarbons output and energy efficiency will be the priority for the government," Azarov said while visiting Yuliiv oil and gas compressor station in the eastern Kharkov region.

The government plans to build in 2013 six new compressor units which will provide additional pressure in the gas reservoirs to increase the production of hydrocarbons, Azarov said.

Azarov announced this May that his country was seeking to ramp up its natural gas production by 25 percent over the next eight years by developing Ukraine’s huge gas reserves, which are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters.

Ukraine aims to produce about 45 billion cubic meters of gas per year by 2020.

The East European country, which has Europe’s fourth largest shale gas reserves, still imports over half of its gas from Russia at a price which amounted to 425 U.S. dollars per thousand cubic meters in the second quarter of 2012.

On June 20, the Ukrainian government approved the reduction of gas imports from Russia to 27 billion cubic meters in 2012 from over 40 billion cubic meters last year.