Ex-official of Ukrgazvydobuvannya Yevgeniy Steshenko, suspected of corruption, ignores calls from NABU.
In March, NABU and SAPO exposed a scheme of abuses amounting to 211 million hryvnia during the conclusion and implementation of an agreement to increase natural gas production between Ukrgasvydobuvannya JSC and the Romanian Expert Petroleum Solutions SRL, with which Ukrgasvydobuvannya entered into a PEC agreement in April 2020 regarding increased production natural gas in the Carpathian region for 15 years
The investigation established that the UGV held a competition and entered into an agreement with the winning company to provide services to enhance gas production (PEC) at the UGV fields. Under the terms of the agreement, the company was required to carry out basic and increased gas production. At the same time, the cost of basic production of 1 cubic meter of gas should be 3-4 times lower than the cost of increased production, and the volume should be fixed.
However, officials, by amending the tender documentation, reduced the rate of basic natural gas production by 750 million cubic meters over the 15 years of potential validity of the agreement. During the first 5 years of operation, the company committed to invest about 1 billion hryvnia in intensification, drilling wells and infrastructure development. According to UGO estimates at the time, this cooperation should have brought at least an additional 300 million cubic meters of natural gas in the first 5 years.
A condition was added to the agreement, according to which the calculation of monthly base production indicators during the term of the agreement was to be based on the volumes of such production by Ukrgazvydobuvannya during 2020, which UGO officials prohibited their own employees from increasing.
According to NABU, these illegal actions led to an unjustified and artificial increase in the share of high-production gas, for which the UGO 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) until November 2023, the UGV caused damage in the amount of 211 million hryvnia.
For the “successful” implementation of the project, the responsible official of Ukrgasvydobuvannya, Yevgeny Stashenko, received a bonus of double the monthly salary. Subsequently, having left the territory of Ukraine after the start of the full-scale invasion of Russia, he found a job as a business development manager for the company that won the competition.
Stashenko worked at UGO together with Maxim Vitik (now director of exploration and development of Ukrgasvydobuvannya JSC). NABU twice summoned the suspect for questioning, but he ignored the invitation.
