Due to the attack of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the captured “Boika Tower”, the company from Medvedchuk’s orbit cannot extract gas, sues the Russian Federation

The Russian company “Novye prokeits”, linked to the accused of high treason, the former People’s Deputy of Ukraine Viktor Medvedchuk, was never able to start the development and production of gas in the Black Sea near the occupied Crimea after the attack by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the installation, which was supposed to drill a well for company in the summer of 2022. Since then, New Projects has been unsuccessfully suing the Russian state-owned company Chernomorneftegaz for the return of the advance payment for drilling. Another trial was lost on New Year’s Eve.

This is reported by the journalists of the Radio Liberty “Schemes” project with reference to the decision of the Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal of Moscow dated December 23, 2024.

According to the text of the document, “Novye prokeits” filed a lawsuit in which they asked to collect 69.8 million rubles of “unjustified enrichment” from the Russian state joint-stock company “Chernomorneftegaz”. This is a “clone” company of the Ukrainian state-owned Chornomornaftogaz, which the Russian occupation authorities registered in Simferopol after the annexation of Crimea, appropriating its assets. Russia’s Chernomorneftegaz was to drill a well in the Russian-captured Ukrainian field of Hlyboka near the southern coast of occupied Crimea by order of a company affiliated with Medvedchuk.

New Projects argued their demands in court by the fact that in 2021 they paid Chernomorneftegaz 70.2 million rubles in advance (including taxes) for well drilling services in a captured Ukrainian gas field.

However, the work never started. At first, in August 2021, the command of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation did not agree with them “in connection with the increased intensity of combat training of the fleet”, so the start of drilling was postponed to 2022-2023.

At the end of June 2022, the Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked the drilling platforms, and the rig, which was leased by Novye proekts, according to the case file, “was destroyed by an enemy attack and is unusable for the purpose of providing services. Thus, its destruction is a critical obstacle to the implementation of the Treaty.”

On this basis, “New Projects” tried to terminate the agreement and return the already paid funds. However, the Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal disagreed with this, upheld the decision of the previous instance and rejected the appeal.

The platform with which “Novye prokeits” planned to drill a well is referred to in the materials of the court hearing in Russia as “the fifth generation rig “Crimea”.

In fact, it is about the drilling platform “Ukraine” (it and SPBU “Petro Godovanets” are better known as the “Boik rigs”, a political ally of Medvedchuk), says Petro Horobets, deputy head of the Ukrainian state-owned Chornomornaftogaz, which controlled the production and distribution of gas from the fields around Crimea before the beginning of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation.

On June 20, 2022, this drilling platform was attacked by the Ukrainian military, and in 2023, units of the Main Directorate of Intelligence returned it to Ukrainian control.

Petro Horobets in a comment to “Schemes” noted that “New Projects” now have no opportunity to start gas production, since Russia has lost control over all four Ukrainian drilling platforms in the Black Sea, and does not have its own. However, even Ukraine cannot yet use these deposits, because the gas pipelines for the transportation of extracted hydrocarbons pass through Crimea, which is currently under Russian occupation.

The Russian company “New Projects” appeared in the suspicion of the Security Service of Ukraine and the Prosecutor General’s Office against Viktor Medvedchuk regarding the “unfinished attempt to loot national values ​​in the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.” The prosecutor’s office indicted Viktor Medvedchuk for transferring information and documentation to Russia for the illegal extraction of oil and gas in one of the captured Crimean fields. The facts about this were first made public by journalists of the “Schemes” project (Radio Liberty) in October 2018.

Then the journalists established that in Crimea, annexed by Russia, the underwater section of the “Hlybok” oil and gas field in the Black Sea was given to the private company “Novye proektsy”, the director of which is a business partner of Viktor Medvedchuk’s family. Half a year after the release of this journalistic investigation, New Projects came under US sanctions.

In May 2021, the Security Service of Ukraine made public records of telephone conversations dated March-October 2015. On them, a man with a voice similar to the voice of Viktor Medvedchuk is discussing with a man whose voice is similar to the voice of the then Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmytro Kozak, the possibility of obtaining a license to extract gas from the seized Ukrainian field by the company Novye prokeits.

The license for the development and extraction of hydrocarbons from the annexed Black Sea field was issued to this company by personal order of the then head of the government of the Russian Federation, Dmytro Medvedev.

In September 2022, Ukraine exchanged Medvedchuk, who was accused of treason, for Ukrainian soldiers who were in Russian captivity.