COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio is delaying executions until at least 2017 while prison officials try to secure supplies of hard-to-obtain lethal injection drugs, officials said.

Gov. John Kasich has issued warrants of reprieve allowing the execution dates for 11 inmates scheduled to die next year and one scheduled for early 2017 to be pushed into ensuing years.

The result is 25 inmates with execution dates beginning in January 2017 that are now scheduled through August 2019. Ohio last put someone to death in January 2014.

Ohio has run out of supplies of its previous drugs and has unsuccessfully sought new amounts, including so-far failed attempts to import chemicals from overseas.

The Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said in a statement the new dates are needed to give the prisons agency extra time to get the drugs.

The agency “continues to seek all legal means to obtain the drugs necessary to carry out court ordered executions, but over the past few years it has become exceedingly difficult to secure those drugs because of severe supply and distribution restrictions,” the statement said.

At Ohio’s last execution in 2014, condemned killer Dennis McGuire repeatedly gasped and snorted during a 26-minute procedure, the longest in Ohio history, as a new two-drug combo was used.