US energy group Chevron is holding talks with the Ukrainian government after the termination of a production sharing agreement (PSA) signed in November 2013 to extract shale gas in the Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk oblasts of Ukraine. Under the agreement, Chevron had to invest US$350m into exploration under the PSA and could run up to US$10bn over 50 years of lease. Meanwhile, the government committed to change a taxation law to simplify the tax framework; the deadline for those changes ran out on 18 November and the new government is considering increasing taxes for energy companies.
Other major companies are active in Ukraine. In January 2013, Shell signed a shale gas agreement with the Ukrainian government; operations, located in eastern Ukraine, were frozen as the area fell under control of pro-Russian separatists. The group was also taking part of an international consortium including ExxonMobil and OMV Petrom (Romania) aimed at exploring offshore gas in the Black Sea off the Crimean coasts.