Ukraine Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has stated that the country’s decisive goal is not to lessen its reliance on Russia for energy, but to evolve into a state with full energy independence.
To-date the Ukraine has been as an energy conduit for Europe, accommodating gas pipelines that convey around 20% of Russia’s natural gas travelling west. When Kiev began to strengthen its alignment with the European Union over the last few years, geopolitical threats to energy safety spiraled.
The Ukraine’s energy safety problems reached their peak in 2014 with the eruption of clashes caused when Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula. Before the conflict erupted, ex-Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko received seven years in jail for helping establish a 2009 deal with Russia’s Gazprom involving the sale of natural gas to the latter. She then became embroiled in a $2.4 million court case for mishandling the Ukraine’s United Energy Systems during the 1990s.
A new plan from current Vice Prime Minister Volodymyr Kistion, involves cutting the consumption of energy by half and increasing the use of alternative and conventional energy sources by 2035. It also aims to attain half its electricity requirements from nuclear power, 24% from water power, and the remainder from thermoelectrical power stations. Kistion emphasized, though, that the approach is just a turning point.
Groysman says that over the past year, the State refused to take Russia’s gas and kicked-off diversification to release itself from the Kremlin’s domination. He admitted in a statement that while the Ukraine does purchase gas from overseas, the aim is to be an autonomous energy entity and then export its own energy assets.
Eurocoal, an organization that embodies Europe’s producers of coal, stated that the Ukraine possesses sufficient amounts of autonomous coal to keep it going for over a century. The majority of the state’s coal stashes are held in the industrial city of Donetsk at the centre of Ukraine’s separatist movement.
The Ukraine also forms part of countries in Eastern European considered opulent in natural shale gas reserves. At one stage, Royal Dutch Shell had an agreement to reconnoiter what the Ukrainian government said was a zone with around 4 trillion cubic feet of natural shale gas!