Crimea revives the economy

The economic recovery of Crimea today is complicated by the lack of normal communication with the mainland. In late December road and rail links with Russia were suspended at the initiative of the Ukrainian side. The ferry across the Kerch strait (from Port Krym to Port Kavkaz) is the main transport artery linking Crimea with mainland Russia, so many hours of traffic jams and waiting for the machines to load onto ferry have become commonplace here. By the end of 2018 it is planned to build a new bridge across the Kerch Strait, but so far the Crimeans call the peninsula 'an island', and Russia – 'the mainland.'The head of Crimea, Sergey Aksenov, said: "We are now carrying out a task which is called "Mission Impossible"... The signs which differentiate officials are dark circles under their eyes - such a volume of work there is today. We now have to implement 8,000 orders of the government and the president, which are necessary to comply with, that have been taken across the country over the last ten years. This is a huge amount of work, and many people do not even understand the mechanisms of how it all should work. However, there is the people's trust in us, in the leadership, there is the trust of the people in the President – his rating is near 100%."Yesterday Sergey Aksenov signed a decree on the halving of his own salary, saying that he has decided to support the initiative of Vladimir Putin at the time of crisis to cut himself wages, not by 10%, but 50%.One of the main tasks of the region became the creation of conditions for the development of its own energy. Yesterday SUE "Chernomorneftegaz" and "Krymgeologiya" signed an agreement on the development and operation of the Povorotnoe condensate field. This is one of the largest and most promising hydrocarbon fields on the land part of Crimea. Its exploration had already been conducted in 1985-1991.Now the further development of the deposit with further installation of a complex of power plants will ensure the generation of 250-300 MW of electricity per day till 2016 (25% of the total energy consumption of Crimea). As the CEO of "Chernomorneftegaz" Sergei Beim reported, "the project will enable us to produce gas from a deposit that was previously considered unprofitable. There will be 4-5 wells drilled, the drilling costs of each of them are about 70-80 million rubles, the cost of one power plant complex is 9-11 million. The deposit's reserves are 3.5 billion cubic meters, which will provide electricity for Crimea for 10-12 years. Daily gas production will reach 500 thousand cubic meters, and the capacity of power plants will reach 50-80 MW."This is a good example of cooperation, when state-owned enterprises combine their efforts. The joint cooperation will lead to work for the benefit of Crimea and all who live there," the Minister of Environment of Crimea Gennady Naraev said.

The economic recovery of Crimea today is complicated by the lack of normal communication with the mainland. In late December road and rail links with Russia were suspended at the initiative of the Ukrainian side. The ferry across the Kerch strait (from Port Krym to Port Kavkaz) is the main transport artery linking Crimea with mainland Russia, so many hours of traffic jams and waiting for the machines to load onto ferry have become commonplace here. By the end of 2018 it is planned to build a new bridge across the Kerch Strait, but so far the Crimeans call the peninsula 'an island', and Russia – 'the mainland.'

The head of Crimea, Sergey Aksenov, said: "We are now carrying out a task which is called "Mission Impossible"... The signs which differentiate officials are dark circles under their eyes - such a volume of work there is today. We now have to implement 8,000 orders of the government and the president, which are necessary to comply with, that have been taken across the country over the last ten years. This is a huge amount of work, and many people do not even understand the mechanisms of how it all should work. However, there is the people's trust in us, in the leadership, there is the trust of the people in the President – his rating is near 100%."

Yesterday Sergey Aksenov signed a decree on the halving of his own salary, saying that he has decided to support the initiative of Vladimir Putin at the time of crisis to cut himself wages, not by 10%, but 50%.

One of the main tasks of the region became the creation of conditions for the development of its own energy. Yesterday SUE "Chernomorneftegaz" and "Krymgeologiya" signed an agreement on the development and operation of the Povorotnoe condensate field. This is one of the largest and most promising hydrocarbon fields on the land part of Crimea. Its exploration had already been conducted in 1985-1991.

Now the further development of the deposit with further installation of a complex of power plants will ensure the generation of 250-300 MW of electricity per day till 2016 (25% of the total energy consumption of Crimea). As the CEO of "Chernomorneftegaz" Sergei Beim reported, "the project will enable us to produce gas from a deposit that was previously considered unprofitable. There will be 4-5 wells drilled, the drilling costs of each of them are about 70-80 million rubles, the cost of one power plant complex is 9-11 million. The deposit's reserves are 3.5 billion cubic meters, which will provide electricity for Crimea for 10-12 years. Daily gas production will reach 500 thousand cubic meters, and the capacity of power plants will reach 50-80 MW.

"This is a good example of cooperation, when state-owned enterprises combine their efforts. The joint cooperation will lead to work for the benefit of Crimea and all who live there," the Minister of Environment of Crimea Gennady Naraev said.