Naftogaz Ukrainy Ready to Work on Unbundling
Naftogaz Ukrainy will do what it can to speed up the Ukrainian government's implementation of the European Union's third energy package (TEP), it said May 13. It wants to start the process, which will include spinning off its transportation business, by the end of this month.
The Energy Community Secretariat (ECS) has reviewed the proposal for Naftogaz unbundling submitted by the energy ministry and given its conditional approval. A timely unbundling process is of crucial importance for keeping the trust in Ukraine as a gas transit country, it said May 9.
Approval by the Vienna-based ECS of the selected unbundling model is required before Kiev’s formal adoption of the plan can take place.
Naftogaz says it is ready to start the implementation of the restructuring plan as soon as the ECS's comments are incorporated and the document is formally approved by the government.
"Naftogaz fully realizes the urgency of the implementation of the TEP to develop an efficient gas market in Ukraine and to confirm Ukraine's status of a reliable transit partner. The company is ready to start implementing the amended transmission system operator unbundling action plan without delay. Naftogaz is grateful to the ECS for organising open and detailed discussions with the International Financial Organisations, NGOs and other stakeholders, as well as for the thorough and competent analysis of all the relevant details of the unbundling process," said CEO Andriy Kobolev.
The ECS has asked that rather than transferring management of Ukrtransgaz to the energy ministry, a new company should be formed under the competence of the ministry, to which all gas transmission infrastructure will be transferred step by step. This should be done at the latest immediately after the finalisation of the arbitration case between Naftogaz and Gazprom in Stockholm, it said.
The energy ministry will also have to transfer the management competences for all electricity or gas supply companies like nuclear and hydropower plants and CHP [combined heat and power] generation to another state body.
The ECS says the next step will then be the certification of the unbundled transmission system operator by the national regulatory authority, if the ECS deems it TEP-compliant.
Separately, the company's new supervisory board met May 12 for the first time, including three independent directors: Charles Proctor will chair the audit committee, Marcus Richards the ethics committee, and Paul Warwick the nominations and remunerations committee.
Proctor worked as a senior finance executive at BP and Genel, while Richards was CEO of Dana Petroleum until its 2010 takeover by South Korean state KNOC, and Warwick spent 32 years with ConocoPhillips and Talisman Energy.
William Powell