Translated material
Dubin ahead of Tymoshenko
The head of Naftogaz of Ukraine resigned on the eve of a vote of no confidence in the government
Oleg Dubina resigned from his post as Chairman of the Board of Naftogaz of Ukraine. The country's Minister of Fuel and Energy Yuriy Prodan confirmed yesterday that the Cabinet of Ministers had granted his resignation on the evening of March 2 - right before the vote of no confidence in the government of Yulia Tymoshenko.It is not easy to summarize the work of Oleg Dubina. On the one hand, during his two years in office, Naftogaz found itself http://red2.vremya.ru/2010/36/248920.html in a very difficult situation. The company's debts to banks and bondholders exceed $4.5 billion. Revenue from gas sales does not cover the costs of purchasing it from Gazprom and transporting it to consumers. Not to mention the fact that a year ago the most serious gas conflict occurred over the terms of gas supplies to Ukraine and the transit of Russian raw materials to Europe.
On the other hand, a very specific situation has developed in the leadership of Ukraine and significant upheavals have occurred in Russian-Ukrainian gas relations. Mr. Dubina, who was a protégé of the co-owner of the Industrial Union of Donbass, Vitaly Gaiduk, who bet on Yulia Tymoshenko, at the same time was not inclined to carry out all the instructions of the prime minister indiscriminately. And the confrontation between the Cabinet of Ministers and the Presidential Secretariat, which sometimes gave out mutually exclusive directives for gas negotiations, put the chairman of the board of Naftogaz in a position between a rock and a hard place (this is not counting the pressure that was put on him by Gazprom).
The turning point of his work at Naftogaz was the signing on January 19-20 last year of 11-year contracts for the supply and transit of gas, which put an end to the gas war. According to high-ranking sources of Vremya Novostei, on January 19, in the White House, right in front of television cameras, Mr. Dubina, instead of signing the gas supply contract agreed upon by the prime ministers of Russia and Ukraine, signed the original Ukrainian version. This could have ended in a huge scandal. But after discovering the substitution and a short reprimand, he still had to sign the final document. The transit contract was signed on the night of the next day on the Ukrainian side by the first deputy chairman of the board of Naftogaz, Igor Didenko, and on the Russian side by the deputy chairman of the board of Gazprom, Valery Golubev. Two days after the signing of the “peace” treaties in Moscow, Mr. Dubina found himself in a pre-heart attack condition in a Kyiv hospital.
A month after his hospitalization, when asked by the Ukrainian publication Fakty why “there was no face” when the contracts were signed, the head of Naftogaz replied: “Maybe I’ll describe all this when the time comes. It's still early." Mr. Dubina returned to work only four months later, thereby breaking the “record” of Alexei Miller, who several years ago was on sick leave for three months after a serious operation. All this time there were rumors that the head of Naftogaz was asking to resign. But the episode with contracts, apparently, only added to Dubina’s respect in Moscow, and the dismissal never took place. Gazprom categorically refused to negotiate with the acting. -- Mr. Didenko. Oleg Dubina, while formally on sick leave, came to meet Alexey Miller at least twice.
In early June, during another gas exacerbation, Oleg Dubina again took sick leave, where he remained until September. But in the fall, he was forced to enter into negotiations with holders of Naftogaz Eurobonds worth $500 million, which ultimately resulted in a technical default, and other external creditors. Debts worth $2 billion, including interest, were restructured for five years under sovereign guarantees issued by the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine.
It is still unknown who exactly will act as the head of the largest state concern - earlier, in the absence of Mr. Dubina at work, this was done by his first deputy Igor Didenko. But he is considered a direct protégé of Yulia Tymoshenko and will probably also want to resign.