KIEV, Aug. 15 - Ukraine commissioned a major power line linking its Dniester Hydroelectric Pumped Storage Power Plant (HPSPP), Europe’s largest such facility, with the country’s power grid, the energy ministry reported Thursday.

KIEV, Aug. 13 – The Cabinet of Ministers has permitted Ukrnafta – Ukraine’s largest oil extractor – to supply 270 million cubic meters of natural gas to industry instead of households in 2012.

KIEV, Aug. 13 – Russia has signed amendments to an agreement on supplies of pipes from Ukraine to the Customs Union states, foreseeing duty-free supplies of 150,000 tons of Ukrainian steel pipes in the second half of 2012 to the country, said Valeriy Muntiyan, the Ukrainian government's envoy for cooperation with Russia, CIS member countries, the Eurasian Economic Community and other regional associations.

KIEV, Aug. 14 - The average expert estimates of Ukraine's GDP growth in 2012 dropped from 3.2% in April 2012 to 2.3% in August, according to the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.

KIEV, Aug. 15 - The growth of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Ukraine in the form of equity capital slowed $2.369 billion in the first half of 2012, 3.4% less than the same period in 2011, according to the State Statistics Service.

KIEV, Aug. 15 - Ukraine will take 25% in a production sharing agreement with a consortium led by ExxonMobil for development of a deepwater natural gas field, Environment and Natural Resources Minister Eduard Stavytskiy said Wednesday.

KIEV, Aug. 12 – The sunflower harvest in Ukraine in the coming 2011/12 marketing year (MY, September-August) will be 7.5 million tons, which is 10.8% up on the previous marketing year, forecasts the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

KIEV, Aug. 15 – Despite a recent fall in standards of living, the number of Ukrainians who do not have enough money for food (17.5%) is still one-third that of late 1990s (52%), the director of Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS),Volodymyr Paniotto, said in an interview with the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia. Ukraine weekly newspaper.

KIEV, Aug. 15 – Inspectors of the State Service for Mining Supervision and Industrial Safety, who monitor the observance of the law in the coal sector, are to introduce a special monitoring regime next month, the service's head, Oleksandr Khokhotva, has said.

KIEV, Aug. 12 - The transit of natural gas via Ukraine to Europe and the CIS in January-July 2011 increased by 13.9% year-on-year to 65.653 billion cubic meters, Ukrtransgaz said on Friday.