Ukraine will fully disclose extraction contracts according to the EITI Standard
On 16 December, the Verkhovna Rada has passed the Law of Ukraine amending certain legislative acts of Ukraine concerning transparency of extractive industries (formerly the draft law 3790), aimed to implement the new requirements of the EITI Standard that came into effect in 2019.
The major achievement of the adopted amendments is the legislative requirement to fully disclose all contracts between extractive companies and the government (production sharing agreements, joint operating agreements and other agreements/contracts), together with annexes and supplements thereto, which will be made starting from the effective date of the aforementioned Law.
Besides the disclosure of contracts, this Law has also introduced the transition to electronic reporting by extractive companies within the EITI framework, a more detailed reporting on environmental payments with separation of payments for carbon dioxide emissions, reporting on the number of employees of each gender in the extractive industries, and other amendments concerning operation of the extractive sector and the gas market.
The adoption of legislation implementing the 2019 version of the EITI Standard means that Ukraine continues to work on making transparent and responsible use of natural resources a commonplace practice, prioritizing the competitive access to these resources and fair rules of the game for investors and the society. After all, significant extraction contracts (such as, for example, production sharing agreements) represent public interest and must not be closed.
DiXi Group also participated in development, and consistently advocated the adoption, of this important law. We are welcoming this step, aimed to increase transparency of the extractive sector, and are ready to take part in an expert discussion and analysis of extraction contracts that will be published pursuant to the aforementioned Law.
The EITI is an independent standard voluntarily maintained at international level, being implemented in more than 50 countries of the world including Ukraine. In order to implement this standard and pursuant to the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement’s requirements concerning reporting by extraction companies (Directive 2013/34/EU), the Extractive Industries Transparency Law was passed in 2018.
Olha Polunina, DiXi Group Manager for Sustainable Development
