OREANDA-NEWS. September 09, 2011. One of mainstreams of energy government policy is reduction of consumption in Ukraine of natural gas. It was started at a briefing by Minister of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine Yuriy Boyko.

"There is an appropriating assignment of the President of Ukraine. Its practical realization has already begun that will lead to significant reduction of consumption by our industry and municipal area of natural gas. We have already submitted to our partners from "Gazprom" the application for purchase of 27 billion cubes of gas it is a sharp decrease because this year we buy 40 billion", - the Minister told.

He stressed that Ukraine curried out a number of technical actions which also would allow reducing consumption of gas.

"I can give an example: only through our gas-transport system after transition to compressors with electric drives we have saved 1.3 billion cubic metre of gas", - Yuriy Boyko noted.

According to the Minister considering that Ukraine increases the coal mining, we can replace gas in energy balance of the country by coal.

"We will replace gas in energy balance of the country by coal. We predict increase of coal mining at a level 4.5-5 million tons more than last year", - Yury Boyko told.