On Monday, March 11, employees of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office exposed a scheme of abuse of more than 200 million hryvnia. The abuse occurred during the conclusion and execution of an agreement to increase natural gas production between JSC Ukrgasvydobuvannya and a private foreign company.
This was reported on the official website of NABU.
“The investigation found that in 2019-2020. JSC Ukrgasvydobuvannya held a competition and entered into an agreement with the winning company to provide services to increase natural gas production at the company’s fields. According to its terms, the company had to carry out basic and increased production of “blue fuel” “At the same time, the cost of basic production of 1 cubic meter. m of gas should be 3-4 times lower than the cost of increased production, and the volume should be fixed,” the department said.
Officials of the joint stock company decided to reduce the base natural gas production rate by 750 million cubic meters. m for 15 years of potential contract validity. They did this by making changes to the competition documentation.
They also added a condition to the contract stipulating that the calculation of monthly base production figures during the term of the contract was to be based on the volumes of such production during 2020. That is, officials of Ukrgasvydobuvannya JSC prohibited workers from increasing production volumes.
“These illegal actions led to an unjustified and artificial increase in the share of high-production gas, for which JSC Ukrgasvydobuvannya must pay at a significantly higher tariff. Thus, for the period from October 2020 (when the fields were transferred to the management of the contractor) to November 2023, JSC Ukrgasvydobuvannya suffered damage in the amount of UAH 211 million,” NABU noted.
The responsible official of Ukrgasvydobuvannya JSC received a bonus of double the monthly salary for the “successful” implementation of such a project. And after the start of a full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine, he left the country and found a job as a business development manager for the company that won the competition.
Now he and another current official of the joint-stock company have been informed of suspicion under Part 2 of Art. 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, that is, abuse of power or official position.
