But where does the country stand overall in terms of oil and gas production? Who are the key players and how does the market work there? Let's take a look at the latest data that shows the potential in a country where MND has big ambitions.

First of all, Ukraine is not self-sufficient in terms of oil and gas at the moment. Production lags slightly behind demand. In 2023, gas production will reach 18.7 bcm. The country had to import a further 4.3 bcm from abroad (basically from all neighbours except Russia and Belarus - 42 per cent came in through pipelines from Slovakia and 31 per cent from Hungary).

The war slowed production slightly. Before 2022, the country produced up to 21 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Ukraine's storage capacity is roughly 30 billion cubic meters, with the largest having as much as 16 billion.

To put this in perspective, the Czech Republic's consumption in 2023 was 7.1 bcm of gas and its storage capacity is 3.45 bcm.

Ukrnafta (focusing on oil production) and Naftogaz (gas) have the dominant share of production in Ukraine. Both are state-owned companies and produce 85 percent of Ukraine's oil and 80 percent of its gas.

Last year UGV (Naftogaz) carried out 225 hydraulic fracturing operations, a dramatic increase - before the war it was around a hundred. UGV also drilled 326 wells last year, again a significant increase (215 in 2022, only 142 in 2020). In addition, almost three-quarters of these are exploratory wells. This data shows that there is now a big push in Ukraine to explore new deposits and further develop production.

"I hope, and all indications are that in the not too distant future Ukraine will become a gas exporter. It won't be that it will be a key player, but every billion cubic meters exported will be interesting for the state treasury," says Lukas Svozil, head of MND Ukraine.

Among private companies, D.TEK, owned by the family of Ukraine's richest-ever citizen, Rinat Akhmetov, has the largest share (43 percent) in production. It produced 1.6 billion cubic meters of gas in 2023. Horizons reached maximum production in 2021, when it was 112 million per year. Last year it was 60 million. MND's business partner in Ukraine, Zakhidnadra Servis of the Kozytsky family, is the fifth largest private producer with 265 million.

"Our goal is to be among the top ten private producers within three years. We can make this bold statement based on the data we have on the Tynivskaya licence, which has been very good so far. The first well only confirms these assumptions. It has even exceeded our expectations," says Lukáš Svozil.

This year, according to him, the trend of a two-year decline in our production should change. The targets are set very conservatively at 45 million cubic meters of gas. "We need to complete the pipeline to our Girska production centre, so we could start production at Tynivska around the middle of the year. Once that is done, it is likely that we will beat the plan," Svozil said.

In addition, the Zukivska licence, which lies in the east of the country (Poltava region), is on hold. 3D seismic had to be delayed last year due to a number of problems, and the site is currently experiencing very bad weather, a lowland area that is now very waterlogged and swampy. The site is at a very low elevation and the water is not draining anywhere, they have to wait for the ground to dry out. It is currently completely impassable terrain for heavy vibratory machinery. To make matters worse, this is an intensively used agricultural area, so the 3D seismic measurements have to be postponed until the end of October.