Ukraine's Ukrnafta buys license to develop Kitvan oil and gas field for 6.5 mil hryvni

MOSCOW. Oct 29 (Interfax) - The Ukrnafta oil and gas company has purchased at an auction held by the State Service of Geology and Mineral Resources a special permission to develop the Kitvan oil and gas field in the Ivano-Frankovsk region of Ukraine for 20 years, Ukrainian media said citing the UBIZ.ua website.

Ukrnafta offered 6.5 million hryvni for the license, while the second participant in the auction, Eurotextile, did not surpass the starting price of 5.017 million hryvni, the media said.

Ukrnafta alone showed any interest in the Kitvan field at the previous auctions on September 24 and October 11, and they were cancelled.

In addition, the auctions for another five areas with oil and gas reserves were cancelled because of the absence of bids. They are the Tarashcha field in the Chernovtsy region with the starting price of 77.14 million hryvni, the Luybinetskaya field in the Lvov region with the starting price of 48.309 million hryvni, Dobrobratovskaya field in the Zakarpatya region with the starting price of 29.271 million hryvni, the Mezhdurechye-Vostochny field in the Lvov region with the starting price of 24.69 million hryvni, and the Yuzhno-Monostyretskoye field in the Lvov region with the starting price of 19.286 million hryvni.

As reported, State Service of Geology and Mineral Resources sold five out of 11 special permits for the development of oil and gas field totaling 1,177,212,000 hryvni at the auctions on September 24.

The repeat auctions for the remaining six licenses were scheduled for October 11 and 29 with a price reduction by 25% from the initial.

Ukrnafta is Ukraine's largest oil producer and operator of the national chain of filling stations. The company started to operate the Glusco network in March 2024 and now operates 545 filling stations in total - 460 under its own brand and 85 under management.

The company is carrying out a comprehensive program of resuming its operations and updating the format of filling stations of its chain. Since February 2023, Ukrnafta has been issuing its fuel coupons and NAFTACard cards sold to legal entities and individuals by Ukrnafta-Postach.

The biggest shareholder is Naftogaz with 50% plus one share. The Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief ruled on November 5, 2022 to expropriate Ukrnafta shares owned by private shareholders - that stake is now controlled by the Defense Ministry.