Ukrainian business group gets access to state oil refining assets.

(From BBC Monitoring International Reports)

The planned handover of state-held stakes in three Ukrainian oil refineries to the Ukrnafta oil company will give the Pryvat business group much-wanted access to state oil assets, a Ukrainian business weekly has said. It noted that the Ukrainian government's plans to turn Ukrnafta into a vertically-integrated oil company had been spurred by the ongoing petrol crisis, and the Pryvat group, which owns a stake in Ukrnafta, would benefit from this. Ukrnafta's expansion is likely to affect the interests of other players on Ukraine's oil market, and they are bound to put up resistance. The following is the text of an article by Vitaliy Kysil, entitled "Kolomoyskyy gets it after all: Pryvat group gets access to state oil assets at second try" and published in the Ukrainian newspaper Invest-Gazeta on 24 May 2005; subheadings inserted editorially:

Vertically-integrated oil company

The fuel crisis is beginning to yield early dividends to private structures which helped the government to struggle against Russian oil …