Ukraine seeks to boost domestic gas production

Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Wednesday that his country was seeking to increase its natural gas production by 17 percent and oil gas condensate output by 8 percent over the next two years. "From 2013 to 2015 we will increase the annual gas production to more than 21 billion cubic meters and oil gas condensate output to 3 million tons," Azarov said during government's meeting. Ukraine is placing top priority on further upgrading its energy sector and obtaining energy independence, he said. In an effort to revitalize the industry, Ukraine will intensify exploration of oil and gas reserves in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov shelf and build a liquefied natural gas terminal, the prime minister said. Seeking to reduce its dependence on Russian gas, which cost 432 U.S. dollars per 1,000 cubic meters in the fourth quarter, Ukrainian government set a target to produce about 45 billion cubic meters of gas per year by 2020.