Due to Russian energy terror, the role of gas in Ukraine's energy balance is increased. That is why the state first ensured that there was enough “blue fuel” in winter.
Ukraine is gradually entering the heating season. Gas distributors have already turned on the heat for schools and hospitals and are finally starting to turn on heat to residential buildings. Notably, on October 30, the capital officially announced the start of the heating season for its residents. And this means that gas consumption immediately increases. And to the question of whether Ukraine will have sufficient reserves of “blue fuel”, there is already an affirmative answer: the Ukrainian state gas company “Naftogaz” has accumulated the necessary operational and insurance gas reserves in underground gas storages for this winter.
Gas production increases steadily
Since the beginning of this year, state-owned companies JSC “Ukrgazvydobuvannya” and PJSC “Ukrnafta” have steadily increased the production of “blue fuel”. For 9 months, these companies collectively extracted more than 11 billion cubic meters of commercial gas – compared to January-September 2023, the increase in production is 0.7 billion cubic meters.
“For this heating season, like last year, we plan to provide the Ukrainian population and other categories with PSO (the so-called mechanism for imposing special duties on market participants – Editor's note) exclusively with our own resources. Currently, we are exceeding planned production volumes by 2%”said the CEO of the Ukrainian state gas company Naftogaz, Oleksiy Chernyshov in a comment to Ukrinform.
According to him, the company's specialists not only drill new wells, but also modernize old ones using new technologies. The company also continues to study gas deposits in its fields and installs exploration and appraisal wells.
“In one of the fields, we drilled an evaluation and exploitation well, which produces 274 cubic meters of gas daily. Field production increased by 17%. This means that, despite its age and exhaustion, there are prospects for further exploitation”explains the acting director of the company Ukrgazvydobuvanny Serhiy Lagno.
The editor-in-chief of the analytical publication ExPro Gas&Oil, Mykhailo Svichtcho, notes that Ukrgazvydobuvannya and Ukrnafta demonstrated a stable increase in gas production during the year, and since September the production of “blue fuel” by “Ukrnaftoburinnia” and Smart Energy took over. According to ExPro calculations, in October this year, Ukrainian gas production was 53.5 million cubic meters per day, which is more than a million cubic meters more than the corresponding indicators of last year .
In addition to gas production, the company “Naftogaz” took care of accumulating a sufficient amount of gas in underground storage facilities. “According to ExPro estimates, as of the end of October, more than 12.9 billion cubic meters of natural gas were stored in Ukraine's underground gas storage facilities. The accumulated resource is more than enough to get through this year's heating season,” says Mykhaylo Svichtcho.
At the same time, alongside traditional storage of “blue fuel”Naftogaz constitutes what is called an insurance reserve: it buys imported fuel, which will be stored in mode “customs warehouse”. This summer, the company agreed with the EBRD to grant a loan amounting to 200 million euros for the purchase of gas. Since the beginning of September and throughout October, Naftogaz has been pumping natural gas purchased with these funds to Ukrainian storage facilities.
According to ExPro, approximately 158 cubic meters of this gas “insurance” were stored in September, and according to the results of October, the insurance reserve could reach 300 cubic meters. “This resource, together with the gas accumulated by the company in the “customs warehouse” in previous years, will become an insurance reserve for the winter and will be used in the event of an increase in consumption,” commented Mykhailo Svishcho.
The role of gas in the energy system is increasing
After the destruction by Russian attacks of thermal production, which ensured coverage of peaks in electricity consumption, the country began to actively develop decentralized production.
“In particular, thanks to cooperation with UNDP and support from the Norwegian government, we will soon receive production equipment that will provide an additional 80 MW of electricity to the Ukrainian power grid. This will help ensure additional production of electricity and heat for the inhabitants of one of the regions,” said the CEO of the Ukrainian state gas company Naftogaz, Oleksiy Chernyshov. The Group thus contributes to strengthening the energy system, which has lost a significant part of its power due to Russian attacks. Power plants of other companies that need gas are also connected to the networks.
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