Chevron to hold public hearings on shale gas in Ukraine early February

Public hearings on shale gas production will take place in four districts of Ukraine's Ivano-Frankivsk region, western Ukraine, between January 30 and February 4.

"We received a proposal from Chevron a few days ago to have public hearings in four districts - Tlumach, Halych, Horodenka and Rohatyn. The hearings will take place from the 30th to the 4th. That is, we are working in keeping with the proposals that come in from the company that won the tender," Vasyl Plaviuk, first deputy head of the regional administration, told a briefing. "All requests that we receive are being fulfilled according to the plan of action," he said. A commission on production-sharing agreements deemed Chevron the winner of a tender for the rights to develop the Oleske field in May 2012. The field contains an estimated 2.98 trillion cu m of shale gas. Investment in exploration will be at least UAH 1.3 billion and in commercial production UAH 25 billion.