Volodymyr Hroisman: Ukraine to become an energy independent country

Ukraine as an energy independent country is a key task, which the Government is trying to solve, said Vice Prime Minister-Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Utilities Volodymyr Hroisman at a briefing at the Government House.

He has informed that Ukraine is to reduce natural gas consumption by 5 billion cubic meters by 2020 and hereby save UAH 8.6 billion of the State budget expenditures for compensation allocating to Naftogaz of Ukraine in order to cover the difference between the purchase price of imported natural gas and the price of natural gas supplied by heat-generating enterprises for the production of heat energy for the citizens. For this purpose, the Ministry has developed a mechanism of economic incentives for the replacement of natural gas supplies to other fuels and the Government has already approved such a decision.

The Vice Prime Minister has noted today that the actual value of one gigacalorie of heat produced from natural gas worth UAH 912, of which the state compensates UAH 598. In other words, the population receives heat worth UAH 314 per Gcal. 

"This means that the state annually spends tens of billions of hryvnias for such compensation. It is about UAH 35 billion that Naftogaz has transferred Russia and these funds worked on Russian economy. Today, we have decided that heat-generating companies switching to biofuels will receive compensations for the difference in tariff worth UAH 508 per Gcal of heat. The state can hereby to save about 5 billion cubic meters of gas for 5 years, almost half of the gas volume that is now spent for the population and public sector heating.

Volodymyr Hroisman has also urged consumers to efficiently use energy resources.

"I would like to appeal to everyone: we need to save gas as much as possible, limit its use. This issue is used as a special kind of aggression against Ukraine. It is a matter of our independence," emphasized the Vice Prime Minister.