What was the last year for you?

To say the least, it was difficult. Such a difficult period, apparently, has not been since the founding of Smart Energy Group of Companies. We suffered minimal casualties thanks to experience of experts in our team and the volumes of production increased for previous years. I am confident we managed to regroup reasonably and I hope we will be able to successfully implement the strategic goals of the Group.

What, in your opinion, should be done first to restore the industry and successfully move forward in the new environment?

The position of our Group and other gas producers is the same: the state must introduce a number of fiscal incentives to continue investment activities. It comes to the extension of the state-guaranteed period of invariability of taxation of hydrocarbon recovery from new wells from 5 to 10 years; introduction of stimulating royalty rent to restore wells and produce hard-to-recover and unconventional hydrocarbon deposits with the development of a transparent method to determine such deposits, etc. It is necessary to comprehensively revise the tax rates for hydrocarbon recovery in Ukraine and unify them with the European averages. However, such opportunities in Ukraine are only being discussed so far…

What do you consider the main achievement of the year? (Personal/your company’s)

The achievement of the year for Smart Energy is that we managed to implement all our strategic projects (new wells, workover, Regal Petroleum rebranding, acquisition of Arkona Gas-Energy) and increase production, despite the sharp fall in gas prices in the first half year and all the risks posed by the pandemic.
For me personally, the greatest achievement (although it is not only mine) is the complete preservation of our team and the social package for our employees. At the same time, we created additional mechanisms to protect our employees under the COVID-19 pandemic by reorganizing the mode of operation, introducing clear algorithms of actions, providing additional personal protective equipment, reviewing the terms of cooperation with our health insurance service.

What advice would you give to your colleagues? What will help businesses better adapt to changes?

I believe the gas business in Ukraine is represented by quite powerful and stable companies. This year showed us the importance of prompt reactions and flexibility of decisions, the ability to quickly adapt to changing external factors. Today, like never before, it is important to hear each other, to be able to come to a common decision and implement it in a coordinated, unified way. Our smooth communication and well-established teamwork are the most important business benefits now. Therefore, Smart Energy Group implements an algorithm for detecting a COVID-19 patient at our industrial facilities. Timely detection of the medical case is especially important, as the spread of the disease threatens the stability of the entire company.

What are your goals for next year?

The main goal is to further increase production, which is becoming more difficult every year, as apart from the state of the global economy, our activities are affected by the objective factor of gradual depletion of deposits. Therefore, next year we plan to develop our deposits, including the new Svistunkivsko-Chervonolutske, in order to minimize the impact of this factor. We are also working to raise additional foreign investment to develop the Group's companies. In the sales segment, there is a possibility to enter the gas market for end consumers. This issue is being currently studied.