5 best news for May
Produces 140,000 m³ of gas per day: a new well has started operating in Ukraine
In Ukraine, another highly productive well has become operational, producing 140,000 cubic meters of gas per day.
As Naftogaz reports, a new well with a depth of 2,350 meters was drilled in one of the partially exhausted fields in eastern Ukraine. In the same part of the field, it is already planned to drill the next production well.
This is already the fifth high-throughput well from the Naftogaz Group (“Ukrgazvydobuvannya”) since the beginning of 2024. The national company strives for the next heating season in Ukraine to run exclusively on self-produced gas.
Ukrainian gas production is increasing
Despite the war, Ukrainian gas producers are increasing the pace of drilling new wells and gas production.
In particular, Ukrgazvydobuvannya, which is part of the Naftogaz Group, increased gas production by almost 12% in the first quarter of this year to 3.5 billion cubic meters.
According to the company, gas producers exceeded the existing plan and achieved the highest production for the corresponding period in the last two years.
“This is the result of the launch of new productive wells, as well as effective work with the old fund. Our goal is to maintain this trend and achieve an increase in production also based on the results of the year,” said Oleksiy Chernyshov, head of the Naftogaz Group.
Meanwhile, Ukrburgaz drillers are breaking records for penetration. In April of this year, they drilled more than 40,000 meters. This is 24% more than the previous achievement, which Ukrburgaz set in November 2023.
Hungarian MVM will acquire a 5% stake in Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz gas field
Hungarian state-owned company MVM will acquire a 5% stake in Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz gas field, the company said in a statement, Reuters reports.
Hungary has traditionally imported natural gas from Russia, even after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which forced many European countries to look for alternative sources of natural gas.
“Purchasing a stake in this gas field gives us protection against larger fluctuations in energy prices,” said the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary, Peter Sijarto.
The Shah Deniz field is one of the world’s largest natural gas fields, with annual production of about 29 billion cubic meters. The size of MVM’s share means annual supplies of 1.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Hungary.
Hungary receives 4.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year from Russia following a 15-year agreement signed in 2021. In addition, for the first time this year, Hungary is buying 50 million cubic meters of gas from Azerbaijan.
Turns a photo into a video: Google has created a new tool based on artificial intelligence
Google has created a new artificial intelligence tool that turns photos into videos.
Google researchers introduced a new tool based on AI — VLOGGER. It is capable of creating realistic videos from a single photo. VLOGGER not only animates faces, but also creates full-fledged images that move and gesture.
VLOGGER is distinguished by the fact that it does not require individual training for each photo and is not limited to facial animation. It is poised to transform various sectors, including the creation of 3D photorealistic avatars for gaming and virtual reality. Actors can even digitize themselves for film studios.
Google sees VLOGGER as a versatile tool for presentations, educational programs, low-speed communications, virtual storytelling, and text-to-computer interfaces. Despite the current limitations of short video durations, static backgrounds, and static figures, this technology represents a significant step forward in image animation.
Almost a thousand Suns in mass. Astronomers have studied a unique star stream
Astronomers from the University of Florida, using data from the ESA Gaia satellite and the MMT observatory, have conducted a detailed study of an unusual star stream called Theia 456.
The results, published on the arXiv preprints server, provide important information about the characteristics and origin of this flow.
Theia 456, discovered in 2019 and also known as COIN-Gaia-13, is a stream of stars in the Milky Way’s thin disk containing about 320 loosely bound stars. This stream stretched nearly 400 light-years in length and occupied about 20 degrees of the sky in the Northern Hemisphere.
Previous studies have shown that Theia 456 is a kinematically, chemically, and gyrochronologically coherent star stream. However, many of its properties remain unclear, and its dynamic history requires further study. Therefore, a group of astronomers led by Kyle Tregoning decided to conduct additional observations using Gaia’s Hectochelle multi-object spectrograph and MMT.