Waiting for an oil compromise

To what extent will Igor Kolomoisky be able to maintain control over Ukrnafta after the appointment of a new head of the company?

The supervisory board of the Ukrainian oil and gas company Ukrnafta today held a meeting of shareholders. The issues of the payment of dividends were considered, and also - which is more important - the question of the election of the new leadership. The new president of the campaign was Briton Michael Rollins. Three months ago, the Verkhovna Rada actually returned to state ownership to Ukrnaft, depriving the control of the influential oligarch Igor Kolomoisky over it. This story was the reason for a serious conflict between Kolomoisky and the head of state Peter Poroshenko.

The Open Joint -Stock Company Ukrnaft is the country's largest oil and gas company, it accounts for 68% of oil and condensate production, as well as 11% of gas production in Ukraine. On March 19 of this year, the Verkhovna Rada reduced the quorum threshold for all joint -stock companies of the group of companies from 60% to 50%+1 vote. These changes deprived the Privat group Igor Kolomoisky , in particular, control over Ukrnafta and the fuel transmission company Ukrtransnafta . In order to prevent the change in company management, the Dnipropetrovsk volunteer battalion Dnepr-1, controlled by Kolomoisky, blocked the Kyiv offices of Ukrnafta and Ukrtransnafta. Kolomoisky at the end of March resigned from the post of the Dnipropetrovsk governor. It was possible to discharge the situation several after the negotiations of Kolomoisky and the President of Ukraine, but the conflict was not exhausted on this.

Collection of shareholders of Ukrnaft. Kolomoisky in the hall pic.twitter.com/1tbcpp1fai

- Sevgil Musaieva (@smusaieva) July 22, 2015

On June 18, the government announced a competition for the post of head of Ukrnafta. More than eighty applicants from eight countries took part in it.One of the candidates was also a Russian entrepreneur , a former co -owner of the Euroset Cell Communication Salon network, political emigrant Yevgeny Chichvarkin . However, members of the commission rejected his candidacy. The new Presidents of Ukrnafta eventually became Briton Mark Rollins , who has more than twenty -five years of experience in managing positions in the oil and gas industry. He replaced the loyal to Kolomoisky Belgian Peter Vanheke . The oligarch stated that the change in the leadership of Ukrnafta would not affect the situation, since he will be able to agree with anyone. The president of the Ukrainian analytical center Alexander Okhrimenko agrees with this:

- Once Ukrnaft is needed only by Kolomoisky, only he can manage this company effectively. If the company will be led by a person not related to Kolomoisky, her work will simply be stopped. Ukrnafta is not Gazprom, it is a small company, and without Kolomoisky’s connections and capabilities it will cease its activities. Of course, there are those who want to divide the property, but there are cases when, after such a process, enterprises no longer work.

"Ukrnafta" can only work under the control of Kolomoisky

There is a hope that the president and Kolomoisky are enough to reach a compromise so as not to bring Ukrnaft to bankruptcy, but to give her the opportunity to work under the control of the oligarch. On the one hand, for PR - everything is fine, at the head of the company, a foreigner, on the other hand, the key decisions will be made by the deputy or adviser to the British. In any case, Ukrnaft can only work under the control of Kolomoisky. And in this case, some part of the taxes will indeed go to the state budget.

- Some experts say that Kolomoisky is the future Ukrainian Mikhail Khodorkovsky. What do you think about this?

- Kolomoisky will never be able to become Khodorkovsky. Kolomoisky is real power. He chooses politicians for the post of head of state. Now the oligarch is actively promoting his party. If he succeeds with the party, it is possible that the person of Kolomoisky will be the next Prime Minister of Ukraine. Khodorkovsky simply played politics, and Kolomoisky has been making politics in Ukraine for 20 years, ”said Kiev expert Alexander Okhrimenko.

The former Dnipropetrovsk governor, on the eve of the local elections in Ukraine, promotes not one, but several parties at once, claiming not only the "Promaymadan" electorate, but also the votes of the southeast of the country. According to the head of the Center for Political Studies of Penta, Vladimir Fesenko , there are no grounds for alleging Kolomoisky’s position in conflict with Poroshenko:

We are talking about a compromise that will allow without judicial, legal and even political battles to gradually relieve stress around this company

- I do not see any direct evidence in confirmation of this thesis. As for the situation with Ukrnafta, the struggle for this company continues. The process of re -election of management of this company is just what the state has achieved. Kolomoisky wanted to leave his manager, but as a result he was forced to make concessions. In whose interests will the new Ukrnaft manager work, her new leader? I think that, most likely, we are talking about a compromise, which will allow without judicial, legal and even political battles to gradually relieve stress around this company, gradually solve its financial problems, including issues of debt to the state budget and Naftogaz of Ukraine .

- Does this conflict still have a political change?

- Whoever turns out to be more persistent, stubborn and effective on the eve of local elections in Ukraine, we will know at the end of July - based on the results of extraordinary elections to the Verkhovna Rada in one of the territorial districts in Chernigov. Now the candidates related to the teams of Kolomoisky and Poroshenko are fighting there, and after the victory of one of them it will be possible to draw conclusions - whose electoral machine works better.

As for the local elections, this new party "Dill", the Ukrainian association of patriots is not a project of Kolomoisky, but parts of his team, Boris Filatov and Gennady Korban . There are other members of the Kolomoisky team, who also count on promotion - say, the Renaissance party . How successfully the parties associated with Kolomoisky will be learned at the end of October. But I doubt that Dill will be able to achieve stunning results throughout the country. I will say more: this party will not even be able to win the elections in the Dnipropetrovsk region, this is evidenced by the data of sociological surveys. In the best case, they will be able to get a majority in Dnepropetrovsk, and it is not yet a fact whether the representative of this party will be able to win the mayor’s election in Dnepropetrovsk. Therefore, to say now that Kolomoisky is conducting an offensive on all fronts and winning is a very great exaggeration, ”said political analyst Vladimir Fesenko .

According to, referring to their sources, the online publication " Ukrainian Pravda ", three companies-the minoritarian shareholders of Ukrnafta, controlled by Kolomoisky-filed a lawsuit against Naftogaz in the London International Arbitration Court. The authors of the lawsuit complained to the new law on joint -stock companies, which deprived them of control over the chairman of the board of Ukrnafta and its supervisory board. Naftogaz and the state energy regulators allegedly forced Ukrnaft to sell gas for the population at a price below the cost of production and selected part of their fuel from the vaults of Ukrtransgaz. Neither in the Ukrainian government, nor in the presidential administration, this news has not yet been commented.