The CEO of Ukrainian state energy giant Naftogaz said the corporate is working toward resolving its debt default problems quickly.
Oleksiy Chernyshov told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble on the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday that he’s in the ultimate stages of getting the corporate back on target.
“By the tip of this month, we’re planning to seek out the consent solicitation with our bondholders to restructure,” Chernyshov said. “This is occurring now quite intensively. My plan inside two weeks is to finalize this process.”
Naftogaz was the primary Ukrainian government-owned entity to default since Russia invaded the country in February.
Last 12 months, the corporate said the deadline for payments to holders of Naftogaz Eurobonds expired on July 26 without payment happening.
“As this failure to satisfy its Eurobond obligations effectively deprives Naftogaz of access to international capital markets, the Cabinet of Ministers because the responsible party now assumes full responsibility for raising the funds mandatory for the import of natural gas for the 2022-2023 heating season,” the corporate said.
Chernyshov said as CEO of Naftogaz his responsibility is to secure production of natural gas within the country, “meaning facilitation and motivation of personal producers to supply more and that is what we’re doing,” he noted.
“Naftogaz will buy from private producers that produce gas in the marketplace base price. Yeah, my task is to extend the production of natural gas in Ukraine.”
Correction: The text of this story has been updated with the right name of the Naftogaz CEO. The photo was also replaced.
