Upon arrival, you can already see how much work has been done here. A brand new wide road crosses the swamp, flanked by recently completed power line poles that will supply energy to the necessary drying and gas cleaning technologies.

One look around and you can see how difficult it is to build anything in this area. There is water everywhere, the reeds are basically the only vegetation. Moving on, the road on the right turns off to one of the wells, of which seven have now been completed.

After a few kilometres we come to a large area where a new mining centre is being completed. The black two-storey building is already finished, and the adjacent technology is being built. Many of the pipes are still wrapped in plastic. Welders are welding, excavators are digging, but MND is facing a number of complications.

War is omnipresent. There are not enough people, some technologies are not available. For example, the previously commonly available underground valves are now simply not available.

"What used to take a few days is now a matter of months. There is also a problem with people, with external companies often having fewer staff. Our personnel have a 100 percent exemption from conscription, but contractors, for example, have only a 70 percent exemption, so out of a hundred men, only thirty are released for the army," says Lukáš Svozil, head of MND Ukraine. There is a problem with welders, for example, who are needed in large numbers on this type of construction. "It's such a juggling act with people, there are not enough personnel, when we plug a borehole we have to move people from the construction centre there and here they are missing again. It makes everything longer," Lukáš adds.

Technology with room for the future

Two probes are producing directly next to the production centre and four more in the vicinity. Another well, designated Tynivska-112, is expected to come online shortly. The aquifer, the entry point from the individual wells, is growing here. As they are all dual-lined, each probe has two "pipes" on the collector.

"We did ten at first, but now we are adding another ten so that we have a reserve for five more wells," says Lukáš. We are standing on the first floor of the new black building of the centre, and Lukáš is gradually showing the different parts of the deposit. Some of the units are already operational and some are still being strengthened. In fact, production here increases significantly every month. The gas cleaning technology is not yet available here, and this process is only carried out at the Bystrica extraction centre (TS), which is several kilometres away (15 kilometres). This will soon change, however, and drying will also take place here.

"We also need to strengthen the gas drying technology, as this was designed for lower production. Our production goes beyond the original assumptions and will increase even further," Lukáš announces. A separator and compressors will also be installed.

An expedition pipeline is also being built, which will boost the amount of gas transported and increase production capacity. In total, this will cover 16 kilometres from TS Bystrica to TS Rudniki. Construction began in early February. However, this is slowing down work at Tynivskaya because we have a limited number of people available.

The aforementioned complication is the overall natural environment in which the licence is located. Ukrainians call the area a swamp. Swamps, marshes, reeds. As soon as you dig into the ground, there's water. But basically, it is because of this difficulty that the reserves here have never been discovered in the past. Nobody wanted to invest in bog exploration.

The whole site is basically on the water, as is the completion date because of the complications.

"The positive is that production is growing. As a result, we have enough funds for the development of Zhukyvska and other investments, such as the new wind park. The sooner we are here, the better," Lukáš says, explaining why it is important to complete the local area as soon as possible.

Martin Beneš