Gas production in Ukraine has been falling for the fifth year – “investment” tariff fees have disappeared
In Ukraine, gas tariffs were increased several years ago under the pretext of the need for funds for investment in its production. However, they never began to seriously invest in production, so its decline, which began in 2017, continues.
Viktor Skarshevsky, an analyst at the Growford Institute, said this in an interview with CapitalTV, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“We have had a constant decline since 2017. For the first six months (2021) – minus 5%. I believe this is a significant drop. Everything is very simple here - more wells are being decommissioned than are being commissioned. In order to have more gas, it is necessary to develop more, to drill more. Drilling must proceed at an accelerated pace.
And we still have a natural decline, depletion of wells, because even in order to keep it at the same level, we need to invest and increase the flow rate of these wells. But this is not an endless process; new deposits and new investments are needed. All this simply was not done.
Why? You can often hear that the Poltava Regional Council does not give permission. But, excuse me, do we have a state, power, government, or do we not have one, and is this simply an excuse? So there was no desire. Either this is malicious intent, or it is due to misunderstanding, or something else. It's not that important anymore. The important thing is that these actions, which should have been carried out to increase gas production, were simply not carried out.
Nothing stopped us from doing this. When, under the Yatsenyuk government, gas tariffs for the population were increased by 3, 4, and ultimately 10 times, under what slogan? “We need money to invest in producing our own gas.” But they collected more money, but no one invested in production,” concluded Viktor Skarshevsky.
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