RIA Novosti: Ukraine’s Shale Gas Ambitions in Doubt, Regardless of Politics
Ukraine’s intentions to tap into shale gas resources as part of the effort to move away from Russian energy imports raises doubts, a senior energy analyst at Moscow’s Skolkovo School of Management told RIA Novosti Wednesday.
“If we factor out the political tensions, which is evidently impossible, then we have to look at extraction technology for the Ukrainian reserves, which has not been confirmed,” Maria Belova said, explaining that apart from the politics of Ukrainian energy security there are other prerequisites for an economically viable extraction of shale gas.
Belova said that the cost drivers of shale gas extraction are key, especially given the fact that “foreign companies in the field have the entire world in front of them” as they choose the most economically efficient site for this kind of operation. She added that even in the previous stable environment, the entry of foreign companies into deposit fields in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region was hardly welcomed.