During 2017, the Smart Energy group of companies, who is one of the founders of the Association of Gas Producers of Ukraine, has experienced numerous searches and audits from the Prosecutor General's office, State Fiscal Service, State Geological Service of Ukraine. The law enforcement and regulatory authorities have numerously extracted the documentation, arested the corporate accounts, opened criminal proceedings against the management, and accused the managing company of fictitious activities.

Such actions appear absurd, since all the companies have been working for multiple years openly and transparently, have paid their taxes on time, and fulfill social projects. In particular, Ukrgazvydobutok PJSC has been recently recognized by the SFS as one of the top-100 largest taxpayers in Ukraine.

The Association of Gas Producers of Ukraine negatively perceives the situation with the Smart Energy group of companies, and is asking the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, and the Prime-minister of Ukraine, Volodymyr Groysman, to intervene. In our opinion, pressuring the Ukrainian gas producers pushes away the potential investors and puts the implementation of the Government's plans of energy independence of the country at risk. Arrests of the top-management of the companies undermines the spirit of the industry and hurts the overall image of the industry.

As stated previously, in total the largest gas producers of Ukraine have experienced 8 searches since the beginning of 2017, and this unpleasant "statistic" has already surpassed the previous year's results.