Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: UKRAINE is interested in im porting liquefied natural gas from Mozambique, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on March 23, as it struggles to meet its energy needs following years of Russian attacks on its production infrastructure.
Before the war, Ukraine met almost all of its gas needs through domestic production. But Russian strikes have meant that Ukraine has lost about half its gas output, Central Bank Governor Andriy Pyshnyi said late last year.
Last autumn, Russia intensified its at tacks on Ukrainian gas production facili and Total Energies announced that they would relaunch a LNG project, previously halted by the insurgency.
With capacity to produce 13 million tonnes of LNG an nually, the project is expected to make Mozambique a major gas exporter.
Ukraine has not imported Russian gas since 2015. In recent years, Kyiv has also been expanding its LNG supplies of US LNG from terminals in Poland and the Baltic countries.
ties, most of which are located in frontline regions in northeast and central Ukraine.
Speaking on the Telegram messag ing app after meeting with Mozam bique President Daniel Chapo, Zelen skiy suggested that Kyiv could offer the southern African nation – which is bat tling an Islamist insurgency – support in countering its security challenges.
Mozambique is a major African gas producer, and in January the country Ukraine also imports U.S. LNG via the so-called Vertical Corridor of pipe lines from Greece.
European AGSI official energy data showed last week that Ukraine had be gun storing gas in its underground facil ities in preparation for the next heating season.
