Ukrainian energy giant Naftogaz soon to be insolvent: CEO

The CEO of Ukraine’s state-owned energy giant Naftogaz said the company is working to resolve its debt default problems quickly.

Yuriy Vitrenko told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday that he was in the final stages of getting the company back on track.

“By the end of this month, we plan to have obtained bondholder approval for the restructuring,” Vitrenko said. “It’s happening very intensely now. My plan is to complete this process within two weeks.”

Naftogaz was the first Ukrainian state-owned company to default since Russia invaded in February.

Last year, the company said that the deadline for payments to holders of Naftogaz Eurobonds expired on July 26, with no payment having taken place.

“With Naftogaz being denied access to international capital markets by this failure to meet its Eurobond obligations, the Cabinet of Ministers, as the responsible party, now assumes full responsibility for raising the funds needed to import natural gas for the 2022-2023 heating season. ‘ the company said.

Vitrenko said that as CEO of Naftogaz, his responsibility is to secure the production of natural gas in the country, “which means facilitating and motivating private producers to produce more, and that’s what we’re doing,” he noted.

“Naftogaz will buy from private producers who produce gas at the market base price. Yes, my task is to increase the production of natural gas in Ukraine.”