Oil--Natural Gas--Exploration--Black Sea--Ukraine

This from Bloomberg News

Vanco Energy, an American-based oil-exploration company, won a bid for licences to pump oil and natural gas in Ukraine's part of the Black Sea, seeing off competition from Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell, the Ukrainian government said.

Looks like they might be on their way to opening up the basin to investment. This is encouraging news. And welcome news because Ukraine has been and still is so dependent on Russian energy. That did not serve them well this past January when the gas was turned off. The threat of cold winters can focus the attention of even bureacrats, looks like.

There is some mystery about this company noted here.