PJSC Ukrnafta has received applications from six companies for the joint development of 15 fields out of 21 proposed for investment in 2023, Executive Vice President for Corporate Strategy and Development Denys Kudin said.

"We received applications from six companies for 15 deposits. No one applied for six deposits, for some deposits only one application was received, for others there were two, so we have to do a certain internal competition," he said during a speech at the fourth conference on energy law in Kyiv on Friday.

According to him, the largest offer for investment in one field is $100 million, the smallest is $7 million. According to the latter, he clarified that this was the best offer for the smallest field.

"As of now, the process [attracting investors to joint development of fields] is ongoing. We have passed the stage of accepting and evaluating proposals, finalized the commercial conditions as potential investors see them. The next step is the approval of these conditions by our supervisory board, consideration by the interdepartmental commission under the Ministry of Energy, and then approval by the Cabinet of Ministers. This is the process, we hope to go through it before the end of the calendar year," Kudin noted.

He said that in the process of searching for investors, Ukrnafta proactively approached about 200 companies, and also negotiated with a number of companies at industry conferences. Of this number, more than 50 potential investors responded, and of these, 35 companies passed compliance and were admitted to the Virtual Data Room with detailed information about the fields.

At the same time, Kudin added that "companies submitted proposals on average 1.5 times better than we developed on our own, having formed our own vision of this five-year initial program."

Describing the process of searching for investors, Kudin noted that the company made their rating by country - in Canada, America, Great Britain, the EU - and approached them proactively, and also advertised in the media, on the website, and at all possible industry events.

Kudin noted that, despite the war, foreign companies are ready to work in Ukraine and, in particular, engage in mining.

In general, in his opinion, approximately $10-15 billion must be invested in oil production over 10 years to achieve annual production volumes of 10 million tonnes, which would ensure Ukraine's energy independence in this direction.