You're reading: Financial Times: One way for Ukraine to escape Russia’s grip – just use less gas

Ukrainian government officials say they are pushing ahead with a several-pronged approach to wean their energy-intensive economy off increasingly expensive Russian natural gas imports.

Luring in multi-billion-dollar investments from the world’s top energy companies – such as Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Eni and EDF – to explore the nation’s potentially vast hydrocarbon reserves is one long term solution. In the interim, the country is looking to diversify supplies from the EU. But there’s another way: get efficient, and use less gas in the first place.

Ukraine consumes several times more fuel per GDP compared to neighbouring Poland and other EU countries. Both industry and domestic users could become more efficient.

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