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Posted On

19
January
2023

Situation with energy supply should improve from mid-March-early April – deputy head of President's Office

DAVOS. Jan 19 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The onset of spring with rising temperatures and longer daylight hours, along with ongoing efforts to repair damaged power facilities, should bring relief to the situation with energy supplies, said Rostyslav Shurma, Deputy Head of the President’s Office.

"I think that from mid-March to early April, the supply situation should get much better," he said Wednesday in Davos on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in a discussion at the Ukrainian House, organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, Western NIS Enterprise Fund and Horizon Capital.

Shurma explained that seasonal electricity consumption will decrease by about 25-30%: pumps that work for heating will turn off, the population will stop using electric heating, etc., and the day will become longer.

According to him, the current power cuts are a problem, and yet it is not so critical, since Ukrainian production facilities in all industries operate at 50-60-70% of their capacity.

"Thus, they usually manage to adapt their production schedule so that it still works at 70-80% of what they produced before. So at the moment it is not so critical," the Deputy Head of the President’s Office said.

He added that there is also a problem with rising prices. However, according to Shurma, the reason is the global energy pricing and the restructuring of Europe’s energy supply, so the situation should normalize with a price reduction to the previous level after "a couple of difficult years."