Bruce J. Vasseur, a Canadian citizen, was appointed as the Technical Director of the largest drilling company in Ukraine, UkrBurGaz.

Mr. Vasseur brings with him more than 30 years of oil and gas experience and as he himself notes, he is a 2nd generation driller as his father started working on the drilling rigs in the 1950s.

During his career, Bruce worked for British Petroleum, Cub Energy Inc. and Kulczyk Oil Ventures as well as a number of other companies as the president and owner of his own consulting firm.

Mr. Vasseur is quoted as saying, “Now that the modernization process is underway at UkrBurGaz and new technologies are being introduced we now have the expectation to significantly increase our quality and performance, however this cannot be achieved without training our people. One of my main tasks at UkrBurGas is the training of our personnel on modern technology, modern drilling practices and western management strategy. We are developing a knowledge matrix for each position that each employee should possess.”

In 2017, Ukrgasvydobuvannya PJSC plans to increase drilling by 60%, compared to 2016, to 320 thousand m. By 2020, the company plans to purchase about 30 new drilling rigs of various capacities. At the end of May 2017, PJSC Ukrhazvydobuvannya announced that Bentec GmbH Drilling & Oilfield Systems was successfully won the tender to supply five 450-ton drilling rigs.