Ukraine may boost gas output to almost 22 bcm in 2018

Ukraine may boost natural gas production by 7% in 2018, to 21.9 billion cubic meters (bcm) against 2017. Such a forecast was given by the executive director of the Association, Roman Opimakh during the press conference.

"We forecast gas production may increase by 7% on the average this year," he said.

In 2017, gas production in Ukraine grew by 2.4%, to 20.5 bcm, the Association said. Opimakh also noted that Ukraine's largest state-run gas producer PJSC Ukrgazvydobuvannia provided the major growth, having boosted gas output by 4.4% to 15.25 bcm.

"Unfortunately, another part of the market, i.e. private companies could not improve their performance and extracted 4.2 bcm of gas, which was 0.4% down from 2016," he added.

Opimakh believes that the main factors of the growth in gas output in 2018 will be a reduction in royalties and the liberalization of regulatory procedures for the acquisition of land plots for drilling.

"At the same time, the industry expects transparent and open auctions on new sites, simplification of geological information turnover, as well as the adoption of a new version of the Subsoil Code, which will take into account the European standards," Opimakh said.

Source: https://bit.ly/32c3q9F