The company was established with the order of the
Ministry of Gas Industry of the
USSR on October 20, 1978 №209-org to develop oil and gas resources in the
Black Sea and the
Sea of Azov. The May 2012 purchase of
Petro Hodovanets (ex-
West Juno) and
Nezalezhnist was criticized due to corruption and
money laundering allegations and higher purchase price than the market price. These rigs were nicknamed the "Boyko towers" after the former energy minister
Yuriy Boyko. Its total
reserves of all fields are estimated at of natural gas, 1.231 million tons of
natural-gas condensate, and 2.53 million tons of
crude oil. In 2013, Chornomornaftogaz produced of natural gas. The research group
IHS reported that in 2013 Chornomorneftegaz accounted for 7.9% of Ukraine's gas production and 2.4% of its oil production. In March 2014, Crimean authorities announced that they would
nationalize the company. Crimean deputy prime minister
Rustam Temirgaliev said that Russia's
Gazprom would be the new owner. A group of Gazprom representatives, including its head of business development, has been working at the Chornomornaftogaz head office since mid-March 2014. Formally, nationalized assets were transferred to the newly established company Crimean Republican Enterprise Chernomorneftegaz, which was later reorganized into
state unitary enterprise Chernomorneftegaz. On 11 April 2014, the
U.S. Treasury's
Office of Foreign Assets Control announced that it had added Chornomornaftagaz to the
Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List as part of the
U.S. sanctions against Russia.
Reuters quoted an
anonymous U.S. official who explained that the United States wanted to make it impossible for Gazprom to "have dealings with Chornomornaftogaz", and if that were to happen, Gazprom itself could face sanctions. The
European Union followed suit on 13 May 2014, the first time its sanctions list has included a company. Naftogaz has considered to file a suit against Russia in international arbitration for a compensation for the seized company. In December 2015, Chornomornaftogaz moved two
jack-up rigs—Tavrida and Petro Hodovanets—from
Odeske gas field to Russian territorial waters due to disputed status of the field and a risk that rigs will be arrested by the Ukrainian authorities. On 20 June 2022, when the 2022
Russian invasion of Ukraine was in full swing,
Sergey Aksyonov announced that "the enemy" had struck an undisclosed Chornomornaftogaz production facility somewhere in the Black Sea near
Tarkhankut, the southwestern cape of the peninsula. Aksyonov reported that there had been three strikes at three natural gas rigs. In September 2023 it was reported that Ukrainian forces had re-taken the Boyko towers. ==Operations==