Yuriy Vitrenko, the new CEO of Naftogaz, says he welcomes foreign investors into Ukraine’s oil and gas sector.

From now on, Ukraine’s state-owned oil and gas company will not “crowd out” foreign energy companies, he promised during a US-Ukraine Business Council webinar yesterday. Speaking from Washington, Vitrenko, a Naftogaz veteran, said he was behind many of the post-Maidan, free market reforms adopted at the company. Edward Chow, a former US energy company executive and a panelist, welcomed the 44-year-old Vitrenko, saying: “You have been preparing all your life for this job.”