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Obligatory disclosure of commercially sensitive information, namely the price of natural gas in procurement contracts when NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine buys gas from European suppliers, disadvantages the Ukrainian holding compared to private importers, which may push prices of imported gas up and limit the number of suppliers, according to Naftogaz's press service.
"Disclosure of the relevant contract terms may deteriorate price offers or narrow the choice of Naftogaz's European suppliers," the press service said, adding that this could translate into higher prices of imported gas for Ukrainian consumers.
European suppliers claim that the public disclosure of such commercial information is unprecedented for the European market and is not obligatory in the EU, including for state-owned companies, Naftogaz said.
"We do not support public disclosure of commercially sensitive information, including data about prices, which is generally considered to be business secret ... and usually protected by EU competition laws," Naftogaz cites a European company's representative as saying.
Read alsoGas price for industry in Ukraine may reach record high in FebAs reported, Naftogaz asked the Verkhovna Rada to revise the requirements for disclosure of confidential commercial information to make them similar for companies of any ownership. This will meet the EU competition law and requirements of Article 13 of the Ukrainian Constitution, stating that "all subjects of the right of property are equal before the law."
However, the press service said, Naftogaz operates in accordance with the law on transparency of the use of public funds, despite a number of unsettled issues and technical errors of the e-data.gov.ua public funds monitoring portal.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine stopped importing gas from Russia's monopoly Gazprom in November 2015. In 2016, Ukraine imported 11.1 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas from the EU, in particular 9.1 bcm from Slovakia, 1 bcm from Hungary, and 1 bcm from Poland. The share of Naftogaz was about 74% in total imports, or 8.2 bcm.
In order to finance imports Naftogaz uses loans from the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), as well as Citi and Deutsche banks, as well as loan guarantees worth $500 million obtained from the World Bank. Moreover, Naftogaz plans to sign documents necessary for guarantees from OPIC (Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the financial institution of the U.S. government) to finance imports of gas by American corporate traders.
In the middle of January, Naftogaz Chief Commercial Officer Yuriy Vitrenko announced the company's plans to import over 35-37 million cubic meters of natural gas per day to Ukraine in February.
According to Articles 2 and 3 of the law on the transparent use of public funds, information about the use of public funds, namely contracted prices, the price per unit of the product to be purchased and the number of goods or services are subject to obligatory disclosure. The law also obliges companies to publish information on the use of state-owned assets on a respective web portal that monitors the use of public funds.