The Burisma Group under control of businessman Mykola Zlochevsky in 2016 seeks to increase natural gas production by 50%, taking into account KUB-Gas – from 1.2 billion cubic meters (bcm) to 1.8 bcm, Burisma Chief Executive for Ukrainian Operations Taras Burdeiny has said.

"This year Burisma seeks to drill 16 wells over 4,000 meters deep and five or seven wells of under 4,000 deep… This helps us to achieve the production target of 1.8 bcm, but we set a goal to reach 2 bcm," he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

He said that last year Burisma launched a well of 5,620 meters deep. Its daily production rate was 280,000 cubic meters of gas and 25,000 cubic meters of gas condensate

"We have not yet reached the largest horizons. After exploring this well it was decided to drill one more on the Vodianivske field. A well with the projected depth of 5,800 meters would be drilled in May. In five or six months this work will be finished. A 2,870-meter well was dripped on the Proletarske field in 21 days," he said.

Burdeiny noted that in 2015 the group's companies paid some UAH 3 billion of taxes to the Ukrainian budget.

Burisma closed a deal on buying a 70% stake in KUB-Gas LLC from Serinus Energy and donating 5% to Cub Energy.