Association's executive director, Roman Opimakh, Ukrgasvydobuvannya's director general Oleh Prokhorenko, Naftogazvydobuvannya's chief geologist Ivan Gafych, have participated in the "Natural Gas Production Using Fracking. Advantages and myths about the technology" discussion.

Roman Opimakh's presentation: "The goal of 27 bcm of natural gas production will be achieved by 2020 in case if new drilling on existing and new fields, enhancement and fracking are performed as planned. Only acomplishment of the program will allow us to substitute the imports."

Interesting fact: every 30 minutes in the US, every 40 minutes in Russia, and almost every day in Belarus fracking is performed. For instance, pioneers, Americans, have performed almost 100 thousand fracking operations in the past ten years. Mostly due to enhancement and horizontal drilling, the rigs' productivity has risen by 3.5 times, and almost 70% of natural gas is produced using these methods. Fracking has long become an everyday production process, and is considered a natural consequence of almost every drilling activity in the North America.

Oleh Prokhorenko has stated the following in his speech: Fracking is not a new method, and it can really boost the amounts of natural gas produced. The goal of our company is to improve domestic production to provide for the domestic needs of the country. Ukraine has to return itself a status of an exporting, not an importing, country for its needs. Currently, imports contribute 41% to total consumption.

Ukrgasvydobuvannya's main strategy is to increase its production to 20 bcm by 2020. Fracking is an enhancement method to increase production. Implementation and execution of fracking is the efficient method of production on mature wells that will allow to produce 20 bcm by 2020.

Despite the talks, fracking is a modern and safe technology, which is effectively used worldwide, especially on mature wells. 

In the oil and gas leading countries amounts of fracking has been rising in the recent years. Russia, which is attempting to obstruct the development of fracking in Ukraine by all means, has been using the technology for years domestically to enhance production. Our government has to separate economics from politics, and everything will normalize. We will have domestic natural gas, we will be energy independent, we will have economic stability and growth" – as stated by Mr. Prokhorenko.

Ivan Gafych, Naftogazvydobuvannya'a chief geologist, has presented his own vision of the natural gas production development in the country: "If we want to achive gas independency, we have to think years ahead. We have to direct all our efforts not only on increasing gas production, but also on increasing our resources' potential and growth of our carbohydrates' reserves. It is the basis, without which it is impossible to count on increased production in the future, and even on maintaining the existing production figures. Exploration of new depths and fields. It is a hard, but one of the most prominent ways of gas production development in Ukraine. We should implicate new technologies for search and development of carbohydrates. The existing geological information is outdated, incomplete, and simply insufficient to move forward. New machinery and new technologies should be used for prior exploration of the drilling fields. It is the start of the "life" of every well, and it is extremely important."