“In three to five years, it is necessary to fully secure our own extracted gas. Given that Ukraine is in second place in terms of gas deposits in Europe, this is a fully achievable goal. At the same time, we need to reduce the energy costs of our economy, “said Julija Svyrydenková, First Deputy Prime Minister and Head of the Economic Department.
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Ten billion cubic meters a year from Europe
The plan was also confirmed on Wednesday by Herman Halushchenko, Ukraine’s energy minister, during a meeting with representatives of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Halushchenko also stressed the country’s readiness to switch to carbon-free energy. International organizations, including American ones, are to take part in new energy projects.
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Ukraine talks about the need to increase its own natural gas production in the long run. Last year, a completely new mining project Delfin in the Black Sea won the green light, in which the Romanian state company OMV Petrom and the Israeli Naphtha Israel Petroleum were to participate in addition to the Ukrainian Naftogaz. The corresponding memoranda were signed last February and March.
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However, according to information from the Ukrainian website Oilpoint, mining plans near Odessa and in the Crimea region fundamentally intersected with Russian mining activities under the auspices of the Russian Navy.
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Ten billion cubic meters a year
In recent years, Ukraine has bought about ten billion cubic meters of gas a year on the European market, paying billions of dollars for it. The current situation is dramatically different.
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“Consumption has fallen by 30 to 32 percent compared to last year and continues to decline,” Oleksandr Charchenko, director of the Energy Research Center, told Unian. According to him, it amounts to about 21-23 billion cubic meters, and from its own resources Ukraine, even after taking into account war losses, provides about 18 billion cubic meters.
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| It is one of the leaders in Europe |
| Ukraine has the second largest natural gas reserves in Europe after Norway. |
| They are estimated at 1.1 trillion cubic meters. |
| The largest deposits are in the Kharkiv and Poltava regions, then in the Lviv region and in the Black Sea. |
| The country has consumed about 30 billion cubic meters of gas a year in recent years. |
| About 14 billion cubic meters a year were extracted by the state-owned company Ukrgazdobycha, and another 6 billion by private companies. |
| Approximately 10 billion cubic meters of raw materials were purchased by the country in European countries. |
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The country now has nine billion cubic meters of gas in underground storage facilities, up to four of which can theoretically still be pumped out. If Ukraine manages to push another up to four billion cubic meters into the storage tanks by its own extracted raw material by November, the supplies should be enough for the winter heating season. The blackest scenario assumes that Kyiv will have to buy another raw material in Europe, but it would be only a fifth of last year, Charchenko calculated.
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“There must be no resumption of fighting”
“Ukraine can be self-sufficient in gas in less than three to five years, specifically within a year or two. However, on the condition that the fighting in the mining areas will not resume, “he said.
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According to Hennadyy Ryabtsev, head of the Psycheja Science and Technology Center, Ukraine is facing a post-war energy audit. According to his estimates, GDP will fall by more than a third in 2022, and it is not yet clear how many wells will be operational and how many industrial companies will need gas and in what volume. In addition, the data will change in the post-war years.
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Heorhiy Heletucha, head of the Bioenergy Association of Ukraine, supports the government’s plan, according to his statement for the newspaper Ekonomická pravda. However, he considers it a priority to focus on efficiency, for example on reducing the energy intensity of newly built buildings.
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In this area, Ukraine lags behind the European Union three to five times. “If our energy efficiency matched the level of Poland, for example, we could completely abandon energy imports and become a fully energy self-sufficient country,” Unian quoted Heletucha as saying.
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The expert also pushes for a greater share of energy obtained from renewable sources – in the case of Ukraine for wind and solar power plants.
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