You're reading: ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Ukraine closes Kyiv office

ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Ukraine B.V. (the Netherlands) is closing its Kyiv-based office in keeping with a decision taken by its board of directors on August 3, the company said in an official statementю

“The abovementioned does not concern the other representative office of ExxonMobil in Ukraine,” the statement said.

As reported, Ukraine in 2012 held a tender to conclude a production sharing agreement on the Ski f sky field on the Black Sea shelf. A consortium led by ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Ukraine B.V. (40 percent, the operator), Shell (35 percent), Austrian OMV represented by Romanian-based subsidiary Petrom (15 percent) and NJSC Nadra Ukrainy (10 percent) was announced as the winner of the tender in August 2012.

In September 2013, the then Ukrainian Energy Minister Eduard Stavytsky signed a PSA with ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Ukraine in New York, the United States, in the presence of the then President Viktor Yanukovych.

After Crimea was annexed by Russia in March 2014, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt announced in June 2015 that U.S. ExxonMobil had given up its plans to develop the Black Sea shelf.

Prior to that, Shell announced its withdrawal from the PSA on the Ski f sky field.

The field is 16,698 square km and it borders Zmiyiny (Serpent) Island, located in the Black Sea near the Danube Delta.

Investment in the Ski f sky field was previously estimated at up to $12 billion. Ukrainian expected to earn up to Hr 90 billion in national budget receipts. Annual gas output there was forecast at up to 4 billion cubic meters.