The gas sector of Ukraine takes you twice

Ukrainian private gas companies reduced production by 32% during the full war war, while state companies only recorded a decline of 6%. The main reason for this is the gas export ban imposed in June 2022, which was extended to 2025, reported the Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine.

In more than three years of the full war war of Russia, the gas production of Ukraine has fallen by 3.5% and 19.1 billion cubic meters.

During the full war, only a private company in Ukraine, Nadra-Geoinvest, increased gas production. During this period, the company bored three wells, each 5,800 meters deep, which turned out to be highly profitable, reported Forbes.

In 2024, Nadra-Geoinvest quadrupled its gas production compared to 2021.

The Esco-Pivnich company took second place among the gas producers of Ukraine. However, production also fell significantly by 28%.

The Poltava Petroleum Company, which belongs to the British JKX Oil & Gas, reduced production by 31%.

The export ban caused losses to private gas companies

Private gas companies argue that the expansion of the gas export ban to 2025 is inappropriate.

“The gas export ban made in 2022 when there was an energy crisis in Europe, and the prices were on record highs, but now there is no clear reason for this,” said Maksym Tymchenko, CEO of DTEK, Ukraine of Ukraine's largest private energy company, opposite Forbes Ukraine in April 2024.

According to Tymchenko, the export ban makes it difficult to predict prices and plan investments in production for the next one to two years.

At the same time, the Ukrainian government is of the opinion that, if they had not stopped exports, Ukraine has tried to ensure domestic consumption.

“But if we hadn't stopped exports, we would sit here without gas,” said a high -ranking official from the Ukrainian Energy Ministry of Ukraine from Forbes on the condition of anonymity.

In order to compensate for business losses, the state -owned company Naftogaz has been buying gas from private companies since 2023, reported Forbes and referred to Mykhailo Svyshcho, an analyst at the advisory company.

“This offers the state a cheaper resource as imports and offers companies a stable buyer,” said Svyshcho.

The oligarchs of Ukraine are the majority of the market, but the companies of Kolomoisky and Novynsky have lost due to criminal investigations

According to Forbes, the largest private energy investor in Ukraine, Dtek, owned by the richest man in Ukraine, Rinat Akhmetov, production reduced production by 27% to 1.5 billion cubic meters, although this is leading among private companies.

Akhmetov is one of the few Ukrainian oligarchs who have not been sanctioned by Ukraine, the USA, the EU or other western countries since February 2022 and continue to do business in Ukraine.

The gas company of Oligarch Victor Pinchuk, geo-alliance, reduced production by 32%, but kept its seventh place in the Ukraine gas production ranking, wrote the media outlet.

The toughest hit was Ukrnlachoburinnya, which was shown in May 2023 by Oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. Before the full war, the company took second place and produced 0.8 billion cubic meters of gas.

In September 2023, ihor Kolomoisky was arrested in Ukraine for fraud and money laundering. It was locked up and the court found a deposit at over 500 million million (12.1 million US dollars), reported the Ukrainian media Ukrainska Pravda.

From December 2023 to August 2024, the now nationalized Ukrnaugoburinnya did not extract a gas because a court had blocked its special approval licenses for resource extraction after a lawsuit by the State Geological Service, wrote Liga.net.

The termination of the license of Ukrnlauburinnya for the gas withdrawal in the Sakhalin field in the east of Ukraine led to loss of around 3 billion billion USD ($ 72.7 million) for the country, reported Ekonomichna Pravda.

Another gas company, Smart Energy, which Oligarch Vadym Novynsky belongs, produced only 90 million cubic meters of gas in 2024 – four times less than in 2021.

In January 2023, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Novynsky, a former parliamentarian of the opposition parties in the Vermhovna Rada, the Ukraine legislative authority, imposed the Ukrainska Pravda.

In January 2025, the law enforcement agencies Novynsky officially accused Novynsky for betrayal and increasing religious hatred, wrote Ukrainska Pravda. Novynsky is well known in Ukraine to support the Ukrainian Orthodox Church linked by Moscow, which Putin's war rhetoric has spread and worked with Russian armed forces near the front to wage the war against Ukraine.