Regional gas companies criticize Gaz Ukrainy's attempt to challenge pipelines transfer
The heads of 31 out of 42 regional gas distribution companies operating in Ukraine (regional and town gas distribution companies) have sharply criticized the decision of the subsidiary of national joint-stock company Naftogaz Ukrainy – Gaz Ukrainy – to challenge cabinet resolution No. 770 of August 20, 2012 on the transfer of state distribution gas pipelines to the management of regional and town gas distribution companies in court, and have asked the authorities to settle the issue.
"We assess the statement of Gaz Ukrainy as an attempt to stagger and destabilize the critical situation in the gas market… We believe the invasion of this company of the gas pipelines is groundless from the legislative point of view and from the position that the company which has dozens of billions of debts cannot efficiently exploit gas pipelines," reads the open address sent to the Ukrainian prime minister, the energy and coal industry minister and the head of Naftogaz Ukrainy, a copy of which was sent to Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday.
The authors of the letter said that Gaz Ukrainy has not carried out economic operations in the past three years and its debt to Naftogaz Ukrainy totals UAH 21.4 billion alone. They said that there is a threat of Gaz Ukrainy only trying to receive state property to pay its creditors, to improve its current insolvency, or to privatize assets secretly.
The companies also said that the cabinet resolution only formalized old relations; it legalized the accountability of state property on the balance sheets of gas distribution pipelines, and clearly regulated the mutual liabilities of the manager of the pipelines, in the person of the Energy and Coal Industry Ministry, and gas distribution companies.
"The cancelation of the resolution does not influence the lawfulness of keeping gas distribution pipelines on the balance sheets of regional and town gas distribution companies," the authors of the document said.
They said that Gaz Ukrainy cannot manage the pipelines as the company does not have funds to invest in them, or maintain and upgrade them.
They also said that Gaz Ukrainy has no grounds for filing the claim with the administrative court.
