OREANDA-NEWS. May 03, 2012. The Government of Ukraine has a big challenge to expand assured resources of gas, oil and other minerals. This was started by Prime Minister of Ukraine during the communication with the users of social network "Facebook".

"First of all, we have the task: to significantly expand assured resources of gas, oil and many other minerals. But above all, of course oil and gas reserves, as this issue critically important for our economy" - Mykola Azarov said.

The Prime Minister stressed that Ukraine used to extracted 60 billion cubic meters of natural gas of its own. "We have a deposit on the mainland, on the shelf; there are those fields where gas was extracted. 40-50 years ago there were no technologies to adequately extract the gas reserves" - Mykola Azarov said and added that such technologies have appeared, so we can revive old wells and increase the production.

"As you know, there are contests on the development of shale gas. In short, we have big challenges" - the Prime Minister concluded.