Ukraine continues to embrace the energy transition despite Russia’s invasion. It has now made fresh commitments to grow it nascent bioenergy and biomethane sectors.
Three more plants are finishing the conversion of equipment from biogas production to biomethane and will start production soon.
Vitaliy Golovnya, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister for Agrarian Policy and Food, said, “We are building a bioenergy hub where there will be production of biogas, bioethanol, as well as a CHP [combine heat and power] plant using sunflower husks. We can collect bio-CO2 from the bioethanol plant and use it to produce other products.”
Ukraine’s biomethane scene is a niche with plenty of future potential but some commentators argue operators need to move swifty as international competition rises.
Serhiy Kravchuk, Director of Kness Energy, an international group of companies focused on renewable energy, said, “Every country has said that by 2030 to 2035, a certain amount of biomethane will be produced, and we need to join this train so that we don’t fall behind again. However, some more conditions need to be created for the industry to develop.”
Ukraine is aiming to open at least five more biomethane plants in 2025 and increase biomethane production capacity to over 100 million cubic metres (cbm) a year.
The Vitagro group of companies was the first one to build a biomethane plant with 3 million cbm of annual capacity at the end of 2023. Connection to the gas distribution stations took place in October 2024. Currently, the company pumps about 6,000 cubic metres of biomethane per day. Feedstock for biomethane production is mainly livestock waste.
The second entity starting biomethane pumping into the gas distribution stations network is Hals Agro. It has also 3 million cbm of biomethane of annual capacity, and the current injection volume is 2,000 to 3,000 cbm per day. The company commissioned the biomethane plant off the back of its own biogas plant in spring 2023.
In other recent moves, international food and agriculture company MHP recently launched commercial production of liquefied biomethane (bio-LNG) and completed the first export shipment of Ukrain-made bio-LNG to a partner in the EU.
