Andriy Pasishnyk, first deputy director general at Ukrtransnafta, talks about the contract for the supply of Azerbaijani oil which he believes is key to Ukraine’s energy security, the prospect of launching the Odesa-Brody oil pipeline, and his personal choice of gas stations.

Knocking on the office door of Andriy Pasishnyk, first deputy general director of PJSC Ukrtransnafta (UTN) is just a matter of politeness. It is impossible to catch him off his guard. CCTV monitors installed on his desk keep him aware of Terminal journalists’ arrival, so the host meets his guests, taking a wait-and-see position behind a high back of his sizable chair.

It is difficult to count, how many various leading positions Mr Pasishnyk has held on his career path. In 2017, it will be 20 years since he launched his career at the Kremenchuk refinery as an operator of a process unit for the primary processing of catalytic cracking oil.

His CV is loaded with high positions in different companies, top-notch partners and, sometimes, rather difficult situations. Back in the day, he played a key role in changing the management teams at UTN and Ukrnafta, when the latter was being taken out of control of Privat Group co-owner Ihor Kolomoisky.

In NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine, Mr Pasishnyk supervised almost all issues at once – corporate rights, HR, economic and industrial security, risk control. He was also responsible for the government’s oil assets as well as those in oil transportation, oil refining, and oil and gas production. Besides, he dealt with capital investment and subsidiaries. Before Naftogaz, he gained experience in the Verkhovna Rada and the industry’s major companies – WOG, UTN-Vostok, and Ukrtatnafta.

His latest appointment as first deputy head of the current UTN CEO Mykola Havrylenko was in June 2016. He took over the management of the company in difficult economic conditions. Oil transit through the territory of Ukraine to European countries in 2016 decreased by 8.8% compared to 2015, down to 13.82 million tonnes. The volume of transportation to the country’s refineries has also dropped to 1.4 million tonnes, which was 12.5% less than a year earlier.

However, as of the first decade of April, the company’s transit figures were already at 3.63 million tonnes, and internal transportation – at 0.4 million tonnes. In January, UTN and Ukrtatnafta signed an agreement to supply to the Kremenchuk refinery in 2017 at least 1.3 million tonnes of Azerbaijan’s oil of Azeri light brand.

From March 10, UTN has resumed operations of the trunk oil pipeline section stretching from Odesa to Kremenchuk. In March, the volume of Azeri light oil transportation amounted to 32,320 tonnes. Due to supplies of Azerbaijani oil in 2017, Ukrtatnafta plans to increase processing by more than 41%.

In an interview with Terminal, Andriy Pasishnyk told about the difficult process of concluding this contract, Ukraine’s prospects of becoming a channel for the supplies of high-quality oil to Europe, and his personal career ambitions.

– What preceded the conclusion of agreements on the resumption of supplies of Azerbaijani oil for its processing in Ukraine?

– In the summer of last year, intergovernmental meetings between the Azerbaijani and Ukrainian delegations on the resumption of supplies of Azerbaijani oil to Ukraine were held. We [UTN] are the main participant in these negotiations, as we are interested in the resumption of oil transportation from the direction of the sea, which has been idle for over five years.

But in fact, the main negotiating party is a potential consumer of oil – Kremenchuk refinery, which is the only refinery now operating in Ukraine.

The refinery has signed a long-term contract with SOCAR [state-owned company in Azerbaijan, exporter of Azeri light] and asked our company to ensure uninterrupted supply via the Odesa-Kremenchuk oil pipeline.

We immediately began to pump oil out of this sector of the pipeline, that is about 220 tonnes of Russian-produced Urals, and replace it with Azeri light brand.

Read full interview — A Trumpet Solo.