According to the Association of Gas Producers of Ukraine, 1.51 bcm of gas was produced in February, 9.8% down compared to January and 7.3% down compared to February 2020.
Ukrgasvydobuvannya JSC (Naftogaz Group) cut gas production by 9.3% compared to the previous month and by 7.9% compared to the same period last year. Ukrnafta PJSC cut production volumes by 13.4% compared to January and by 10.5% compared to February last year. For the first time in several months, independent gas producers showed a decrease of 3.9% by February 2020 and 11.2% by January 2021.
After three months of growth, gas production in Ukraine saw its decline in February. Meanwhile, the factor of natural fall is not compensated by new wells, drilling of which is impossible due to rough investment conditions related to COVID-19.
According to the Association of Gas Producers of Ukraine, 30 drilling rigs were involved in drilling in Ukraine in February, 1 unit up compared to January.
73 active drilling rigs were recorded in Europe, which is 6% more than in January. Only two countries showed a decrease: France - by 1 unit (-50%) and Turkey - by 1 unit (-6%). Most countries’ performance remained unchanged, but the countries with the highest growth were: Italy (1 unit or + 100%), Norway (3 units or + 20%) and the offshore part of the United Kingdom (2 units or + 29%). February positive changes confirm, first of all, successful fiscal and regulatory policies implemented in these countries during the global economic crisis and are a natural result of the improvement of the price situation on the world market.
In turn, Ukraine is heading for production increase. As Interfax reports, Ukraine intends to fully provide itself with own gas in 2025, the Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said.
"2025 deadline is to fully cover Ukraine's gas needs," he said during a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.
Investments in the next two or three years will amount to UAH 10 billion, he added.
"We hope that the years of 2024-2025, thanks to the discovery of new fields, will allow Ukraine to fully meet the domestic needs both for the population and for industrial gas consumers by domestic production," the Prime Minister said.
As reported with reference to the data of the GTSOU transparency platform, the gross gas production in Ukraine in 2020 amounted to 19.742 bcm (-4.4% against 2019). Considering the gross production of the state-owned UGV - 14.23 bcm - its share in total gas production countrywide was 72.1%.
In January 2021, gas production in Ukraine amounted to 1.67 bcm, 4.6% down compared to January 2020 (1.75 bcm).
At the same time, according to the latest NEURC’s monitoring data, in January-September 2020, Ukraine increased the gross consumption of natural gas up to 20.01 bcm, which is 3.7% more (by 0.71 bcm) compared to the same period in 2019.