Ukraine Seeks Cooperation with Shell to Boost Production

Ukraine and Royal Dutch Shell are interested in fostering their cooperation in both conventional and unconventional fields, reads a note released by the Ukrainian government on Thursday.

"I want to offer Shell to join to gas production not only from unconventional reservoirs, including shale, but also to its production from traditional deposits," Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said after a meeting with Royal Dutch Shell’s Upstream International Director Andy Brown.

Azarov said that Kiev is interested in cooperating with Shell to renovate and innovate its energy system. He stressed that Ukraine would increase hydrocarbon production by 25-30% in the next future.

"We could cooperate and share expertise, jointly developing depleted traditional fields, we could send you our technology," Andy Brown said.

According to the note, Shell would use a technology to increase gas production from depleted fields already in use in the Netherlands.

Ukraine's government is keen to produce locally to ease dependence on Russia. Ukraine also continues to make ambitious plans to decrease national energy consumption, switch its power stations from natural gas to coal, build an LNG terminal, and open reverse flows of gas from Europe.