New Procedure For Access To The Gas Transportation System

On 19 April 2012 the National Commission on State Regulation of the Energy Sector of Ukraine ("NERC") adopted Resolution No 420 "On Adoption of the Procedure for Granting Access to the Unified Gas Transportation System of Ukraine" (the "Procedure").

The Procedure is aimed at liberalising the Ukrainian natural gas market and it provides a detailed mechanism to ensure non-discriminatory access by those operating in the market to the Ukrainian gas transportation system ("GTS"). The Procedure envisages that any of the gas market players (i.e. state-owned or private legal entities or individual entrepreneurs engaged in the production, transportation, distribution, storage and/or supply of gas, as well as consumers of natural gas as a raw material or fuel (excluding the wider population), hereinafter the "Market Players") may obtain access to the GTS from an operator thereof, which (according to the Procedure) is the state oil and gas monopoly – NAK "Naftogaz of Ukraine"