Ukraine doubles spending on oil & gas exploration
KYIV. Aug 3. (Interfax) - The Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers has allocated UAH 869.2 million to perform oil and gas prospecting and exploration work, which is more than double the amount it earmarked in 2011.
According to Cabinet of Ministers resolution #689 dated August 1, which approve the parameters of the state order for 2012, overall financing for the development of the country's mineral and raw materials base is scheduled to double over last year's level to reach UAH 1 billion.
Meanwhile, spending on prospecting and exploration operations for mineral resources besides oil and gas is being reduced. In particular, expenditures on the search for other fuel and energy resources is being cut by 28.4% to UAH 28.6 million, for metallic mineral resources - by 37.8% to UAH 16.4 million, for non-metallic resources - by 45.3% to UAH 6.5 million, and for drilling artesian wells - by 51.7% to UAH 11.1 million.
Boosted financing for oil and gas scouting is expected to help raise oil and gas condensate reserves by 3.1 million tonnes (the state order for 2011 envisaged an increase of 0.5 million tonnes), and it will facilitate an 11.8 billion cubic meter (bcm) increase in natural gas reserves (3 bcm last year).
Meanwhile, the area of studied prospective oil and gas structures is being kept at 30 square kilometers, and their quantity and projected standard fuel resources are being reduced from six to four units and from 22 million tonnes to 15 million tonnes, respectively.
In addition, this year's state order involves 20-million-tonne growth in steam coal reserves and 2-million-tonne growth in brown coal reserves. Last year, the plan for these resources was plus 7 million tonnes and plus 1 million tonne, respectively.
At the same time, the majority of the remaining mineral resources will see a drop in the plan for reserves growth this year. Uranium reserves growth will fall from 0.5 to 0.3 standard units, gold - from 40 to 10 standard units, titanium - from 2 to 1.5 su, amber - from 1,000 to 600 kg, and underground drinking water - from 2.3 to 1.11 million cu m a year. The exceptions are rare earth metals and staurolite, the resource and reserve growth plans for which have been hiked in comparison with 2011 - from 0.1 to 7 su and from 1 to 1.9 million tonnes, respectively.
The plans for methane at coal deposits, phosphorites, raw quartz crystal, nickel, refractory and bentonite clays have been totally excluded from the state order for 2012.
The official exchange rate on August 3 was UAH 7.993/$1.