Naftogaz Group reports that its CEO Oleksiy Chernyshov took part in the Energy of Business industry conference organised by Forbes Ukraine.
"This will be the first winter for Ukraine that we will go through thanks to our own gas production, without spending a single penny from the state budget on the purchase of imported fuel," said Oleksiy Chernyshov, Chairman of Naftogaz Group.
He reminded that preparations for this year's heating season are ongoing .
Naftogaz has filled its underground gas storage facilities ahead of schedule to get through this winter. The amount of reserves in the UGS facilities now exceeds 15.1bn cu.m. of gas. Last week, this figure was 14.7bn cu.m.
"To reform the sector, we need a free energy market, which will increase competition and thus improve energy efficiency and our energy independence," said the Naftogaz CEO.
These and other steps, such as the creation of independent supervisory boards, will stimulate faster and more efficient reforms in the sector, according to Chernyshov.
"In the challenging year of 2022 alone, Naftogaz paid more than 90bn hryvnas in taxes to the state treasury, which amounted to 13% of the state budget revenues. We are one of the largest taxpayers and we plan to increase this figure," he summarised.
Ukrtransgaz started pumping gas into underground storage facilities for the next heating season in April. During the withdrawal season, namely from 7 October 2022, 5.572bn cu.m. of gas were withdrawn from the UGSFs.
At the beginning of the year, during negotiations in Davos, Naftogaz agreed to reserve additional volumes of gas needed by Ukraine to complete this year's heating season. Naftogaz also agreed with the EBRD, Norway, the United States, Germany, France, Canada, and the United Kingdom to finance the purchase of additional gas.