
These blurbs from the Atlantic Council and Middle East Institute give you a pretty good overview. No one should be terribly surprised by what is happening now.
The exact volumes of gas currently lying deep underneath the Black Sea are not yet known. Rough estimates predict that the Ukrainian shelf may contain more than two trillion cubic meters of gas. The exact figure is yet to be determined since two-thirds of the country’s maritime area passed to de facto Russian control following Moscow’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. Ukraine’s state energy company Naftogaz is preparing to explore 32 remaining blocks.
Atlantic Council 3/30/2021
Ukraine’s chances for energy autonomy were effectively cancelled with Crimea’s illegal annexation. According to its Energy Ministry, Ukraine lost 80 percent of its Black Sea oil and gas deposits as a result. As of March 2014, the Crimean-based Chornomornaftogaz’s gas estimates totaled 58.6 bcm in an EEZ three times the peninsula’s land mass and potentially worth trillions. Upon annexation, Russia seized all its fields and production facilities; the U.S. imposed sanctions not long after. ExxonMobil withdrew from Ukraine’s EEZ while other hydrocarbon supers similarly retracted.
MEI-12/14/2020
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