Ukraine cancels oil & gas contract with Trident
US-based energy investment company Trident Acquisitions has had its contract with Ukraine's Minister of Energy and Coal Mining cancelled, thus stripping the company of its rights to to produce oil and gas from the country's Dolphin black in the northwestern Black Sea.
"We cancelled the decision," said Ukrainian Energy Minister Oleksiy Orzhel to Ukraine Business News.
Roman Opimakh, executive director of Ukraine’s Association of Gas Producers supported the cancellation of the tender. He told Reuters that Trident is welcome to try again in a rerun of the tender. Relying largely on Ukrainian capital and companies, Ukraine remains a gas importer.
Trident Acquisitions won a public competition to explore and produce oil and gas in the Dolphin block in July. There was heavy criticism that the two-month preparation period for the competition was too short and major multinationals were not encouraged to make a bid.
The cancellation comes shortly after ExxonMobil announced it was to pull out of an offshore gas project in Romania, near the Dolphin block, where Trident had been offered exploration and production rights.
Trident Acquisitions said that the energy ministry's decision had meant that the company had lost $1-billion of new investment.
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