Naftogaz drilled 140 new gas wells in 2025—the most in Europe—CEO Serhiy Koretskyi announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos on 20 January. The figure marks a 69% jump from 83 wells in 2024.
While Russia has systematically attacked Ukraine’s centralized power plants, the country’s gas production—spread across wells in 12 oblasts—offers a harder target. The drilling surge represents Ukraine’s bet on distributed energy infrastructure that missiles can’t knock out entirely.
“We can drill even more, but we need to attract additional funding.”
The production gains come as Russia wages its most intense campaign yet against Ukraine’s energy sector. In January alone, strikes have left Kyiv residents with as little as 3 hours of electricity per day, hundreds of buildings without heat in temperatures as low as –15°C, and every power plant in the country damaged, according to the Minister of Energy Denys Shmyhal. Russia launched 612 targeted attacks on Ukraine’s energy sector in 2025, Shmyhal said on 16 January.
“We can drill even more, but we need to attract additional funding,” Koretskyi noted at the Davos panel.
Black Sea ambitions
Naftogaz has completed 3D seismic surveys for the Dolphin gas field—a 9,500 sq km block on the northwestern Black Sea shelf, in waters Ukraine still controls west of occupied Crimea—and is ready to begin drilling preparations, Koretskyi told the panel.
“Naftogaz’s projects are a huge investment opportunity for the US-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund.”
State geological estimates put the field’s reserves at some 286 billion cubic meters, though not all can be recovered. For comparison, Ukraine’s total proven reserves stand at around 670 billion cubic meters.
“Naftogaz’s projects are a huge investment opportunity for the US-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund,” Koretskyi added. “I think one of our projects will be among the first for it.”
The pitch comes as Ukraine courts American capital at Davos. The US-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund, managed by the US Development Finance Corporation with $150 million in seed capital, announced in December that it reached “full operational status” and expects to make its first three investment decisions by the end of 2026.
Trending Now
The price of resilience
Ukraine’s drilling record couldn’t prevent the import surge that followed Russia’s attacks on production facilities. The government allocated 8 billion hryvnias ($185 million) from the state budget, plus international partner support, to import 5.7 billion cubic meters of gas for the heating season—up from near-zero imports a year earlier.
“We have defined clear parameters for imports for the next period.”
“This allowed us to replace the volumes of domestic production lost due to massive missile strikes,” First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said following a meeting with Koretskyi on 17 January. “We have defined clear parameters for imports for the next period to get through this winter’s unprecedentedly difficult heating season.”
Energy experts have warned there are no quick fixes for Kyiv’s crisis, which could last until spring. Whether American and European investors will bet on Ukraine’s energy future while the war continues remains an open question.
