KIEV, April 21 - Commercial oil and gas production on Ukraine's Black Sea shelf will commence no earlier than 2021, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said.

"We are currently in talks [with Vanco] and will conclude a settlement," he said, referring to BVI-registered Vanco Prykerchenska, which lost the license to the property in 2008. "That company will return and it will be 10 more years before we will have commercial production of oil and gas on the shelf," Azarov told journalists in Kiev on Thursday.

Azarov said it was perfectly normal for a country that doesn't have the investment resources available to develop hydrocarbons on the shelf to hire a private company for the job.