Explaining last week’s firing of the head of Ukraine’s state gas production company,

Explaining last week’s firing of the head of Ukraine’s state gas production company, Prime Minister Groysman tells the Cabinet that he is “extremely dissatisfied” that UkrGazVdobuvannya “actually failed” to meet gas production targets for 2020. In his defense, Oleg Prokhorenko, the fired CEO, says regional governments rejected licenses for new fields. He says the production company applied for new licenses 170 times in 2016-2018, but received only 17 permits, far below the 15-20 a year stipulated in the government’s production strategy. He said Poltava rejected all 60 applications.