On February 14 the third session of the Ukrainian-American commission on strategic partnership started its work. Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called it “one of the most important scheduled foreign policy events of early 2011.”
Within the framework of the session of the commission, headed on the American side by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Ukraine planned to discuss the current state of affairs and prospects of cooperation in such spheres as demo-cratic development and civic freedom protection, trade and economic relations, Washington’s support of Ukraine’s systemic socioeconomic reforms, and cooperation in the energy, scientific-technical and defense spheres. A total of 14 Ukrainian officials took part in the dialog with the US, three of them represented the interests of the domestic energy market: Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Yurii Boiko and his deputy Volodymyr Makukha, as well as the head of the National Commission of Electric Energy Re-gulation Serhii Tyshchenko.
The presence of so many representatives of Ukraine’s energy sphere is justified, according to a participant of the session of the Ukrainian-American Commission on Strategic Partnership in 2009, the commissioner of Ukraine’s ex-president Viktor Yushchenko on energy security, and expert on energy questions Bohdan Sokolovsky.
For the question of development of the energy market has been a priority for several consecutive years in Ukrainian-American dialog. “Today energy is [part of the] development strategy of any country, including Ukraine. The US is well aware of this, therefore it is interested in putting the Ukrainian-American dialog on practical ground,” Sokolovsky comments.
According to Sokolovsky, the energy questions, discussed by Ukrainian and American officials at a roundtable in Washington each year, have not changed much: development of the energy sphere, including nuclear energy; diversification of oil and gas supply to Ukraine, within the framework of the US support of the Eurasian oil transit corridor using the Odesa-Brody pipeline; development of alternative energy sources in Ukraine, as well as the question of energy savings and energy efficiency. Ukrainian-American cooperation on extracting coal-bed methane gas is also a topic of import. “Although Ukraine has made bargains with Russia for methane supply, I consider this an ‘absurd’ and ‘shameful’ phenomenon, we should take advantage of the colossal experience that the US has in this sphere,” Sokolovsky asserts.
After the negotiations, Ukraine invited US energy companies to cooperate in the construction of a LNG-terminal, which is being built to supply the nation with liquefied natural gas. The offer to prospective partners was made personally by the Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Yurii Boiko when summing up session of the Ukrainian-American working group on energy security in Washington.
“The Ukrainian side is carrying out a number of measures to start cooperation with transnational corporations on the exploration and production of unconventional gas in Ukraine. I would like to emphasize that we are interested in cooperation with the US in this field,” said the minister. He also informed the American side of the steps that the Ukrainian government is taking to diversify Ukraine’s natural gas imports.
These steps, of course, include the re-launch of the Odessa-Brody pipeline, which began to pump Caspian oil to Belarus. Such an event was unlikely to go unnoticed on the eve of the Ukrainian delegation’s visit to Washington. It highlighted the increasing load on the national oil transportation system and the improvements in terms of the energy security of Ukraine, the region and Europe in general, because the pipeline’s re-launch helps diversify energy supplies throughout the Caspian-Black Sea region. Thus, Ukraine’s reliability as an energy transit country should grow in the eyes of foreign investors.
