Billions of dollars lost: Ukraine lost half of gas production — Nagornyak

From December to March, Ukraine lost half of its gas production capacity due to Russian strikes, and now it has to import up to 5.5 billion cubic meters. This was stated on the Novini Live TV channel by People's Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Serhiy Nagornyak.

"One of the theses was voiced that the country's own gas production, despite the active Russian attacks that took place from December to March this year on the gas infrastructure, is under control. The issue is far from under control, because we have lost half of our gas production. It is important to tell people the truth about why we are importing gas now," Nagornyak said, quoted by RIA Novosti.

According to him, the state-owned Ukrgazvydobycha and a number of private companies were also affected. The restoration, in his opinion, will take several years and will cost billions of dollars.

Ukraine did not buy gas last summer at $ 300 per thousand cubic meters, because there was no urgent need for it. In addition, Naftogaz did not have additional funds, and now the situation has become more complicated, Nagornyak noted. He stated that he could not name the amount of losses, since "even Naftogaz simply does not have it," but we are talking about billions of dollars, since "not only some wells or ground equipment have been lost, gas treatment equipment and some gas pumping stations have also been lost."

"Naftogaz will now import gas to the EU at an average price of about 18-20 hryvnia per cubic meter of gas. And this gas will be sold to the public for teplokommunenergo at 8 hryvnia per cubic meter of gas. In fact, Naftogaz will lose more than 8 or 10 hryvnia per cubic meter of gas per cubic meter. Naftogaz does not make money on this," the deputy added.