Economy Ministry considers it necessary to resume work of Smart Holding gas producing companies

The Ministry of Economy of Ukraine advocates the resumption of the work of Smart Holding group gas producing enterprises in Poltava and Kharkiv regions, which was stopped due to sanctions against the company's shareholder Vadim Novinsky.

"If we are talking about the economy of Ukraine and about Ukrainian enterprises that work for the economy of Ukraine, and about preventing the influence of sanctioned ultimate beneficial owners on Ukrainian enterprises, then the Ministry of Economy fully shares the position that Ukrainian enterprises should work for Ukraine," said Yaroslava Maksymenko, Director of the Department of Property Policy and Sanctions of the Ministry of Economy, during a roundtable discussion on Ukrainian subsoil under sanctions and arrests, about challenges, conclusions, and future in Kyiv on Thursday, responding to the call of the CEO of Smart-Holding Group, Ivan Herasymovych, to "hear the business" that wants to work in Ukraine.

In turn, Herasymovych called for the adoption of an appropriate "corrective decision."

"The sanctions are aimed at depriving the aggressor state, the Russian Federation, of resources for the war in Ukraine. Right? Anything that deprives them of resources is good. If the sanctions are applied in such a way that they deprive their own state of resources, then it is necessary to find a solution that would level the situation and provide an opportunity to support our army and our military," he said.

According to Maksymenko, today the issue of resuming the work of these enterprises "lies in the plane of changes to the legislation" and the Ministry of Economy, together with other state authorities, has already worked out the appropriate changes to the legislation.

"They are far from ideal, but they solve at least partially the problematic issues... We are open to dialogue, let's work," said the representative of the Ministry of Economy.

During the discussion, Herasymovych, focusing on the purpose of the sanctions, noted that Ukraine is currently forced to buy Russian gas from Hungary and Slovakia, preventing enterprises in Ukraine from extracting Ukrainian gas.

As reported, at the end of January this year, due to the termination of three special permits, the Smart Energy group stopped the work, in particular, of one of the largest private gas producing enterprises - the representative office of Regal Petroleum Corporation Limited, which is 100% owned by the British company Enwell Energy and operates in Poltava region.

The Smart Energy group of companies is part of the Smart Holding investment group, implements projects for the exploration and industrial development of hydrocarbon deposits and was among the five largest private gas producers in Ukraine, producing a total of over 1 million cubic meters of gas per day at the beginning of the full-scale Russian military aggression.