Ukrainian state-owned energy company Naftogaz, aiming to cover the country’s needs with domestic production, has brought 54 new gas wells into operation this year, it said on Friday.

Ukraine, which has not imported natural gas directly from Russia since 2015, buys gas from the European Union but has been stepping up efforts to increase domestic production.

“Due to the launch of 54 new gas wells since the beginning of the year … the average daily production rate of natural gas reached the highest level since June 2020,” it said in a report.

Naftogaz said its daily gas output rose by 3.31 million cubic metres (mcm), though the company did not disclose how much gas it now produces.

The company has not disclosed the location of the wells, but most of Ukraine’s gas fields are in the Kharkiv and Poltava regions that have come under frequent missile fire since the Russian invasion in February 2022.

Naftogaz is Ukraine’s largest gas producer, with output of 12.5 billion cubic metres (bcm) in 2022.

It has said that Ukraine plans to increase its natural gas output by more than 5% in 2023 to 19 bcm despite the Russian invasion.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Editing by David Goodman)