With the assistance of the Association of Gas Producers of Ukraine and Naftogazbudinformatyka, the Bleyzer Foundation has hosted the Reforms of the permitting system for the oil and gas upstream industry round table on June 27th.

The purpose of the event was to actualize the implementation of the intermediate plans of the Concept for Development of Ukraine's Gas Production Industry by 2020 among the public, and discuss them with the representatives of the Government, the Parliament, the producers and the experts of the industry.

The officials, MPs, industry experts and journalists were involved in the discussion of the importance of simplifying the permitting procedures for oil and gas production, holding maximally transparent biddings for PSAs. The first step, which is already laid out in a legislative initiative, and will allow to solve for the lion share of the problem, is passing the 3096-d bill in the Parliament.

Roman Opimakh, executive director of the Association of Gas Producers of Ukraine, has presented a plan and recommendations of deregulation of the oil and gas production industry.

Yuliya Kovaliv: "When we are talking about the investors in Ukraine's gas production, the state has to make the corresponding steps towards them. We do not have transparent biddings for special permits for field development, we desperately need to figure out something with opening up access to geological information. The State Geological Survey has to be proactive in these issues."

Olga Bielkova: "I am stressing out the importance of the relevant for the industry issue of elimination of the Central oil and gas Development Commission (CDC) of the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine. The state authority, which is completely inactive, which has not had a single hearing in almost 1.5 years, it is a state fiction. I do not want to continue starting my mornings at the workplace with attempting to solve the problems of CDC. The decision to eliminate this authority should be made immediately. And we are expecting the State Geological Survey to audit the "dormant" licenses."

Oleksandr Dombrovskyy: "In October, the Parliamentary Committee of Energy, Nuclear Policy and Safety, will be holding a hearing, which will be dedicated to the current state of issue of special permits to producing companies, as well as to the progress of the audit of "dormant" licenses. This question has grown over years, the public needs to know the efficiency of implementation of the key matters of the energy safety of the country."