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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Andriy Herus, head of the parliamentary committee on energy and housing-utilities, addressed Prime Minister Serhiy Koretsky with a request to dismiss the management of SE “Energoatom-Trading” (the Energoatom unit responsible for electricity sales). The relevant letter from 5 November is in the possession of Nashi Hroshi (PMU regarding EA abuses).
The reason is one of the energy sales auctions, which, according to Herus, showed signs that a market participant used insider information. The letter refers to D.Trading LLC from Rinat Akhmetov’s DTEK group:
“The sequence of actions and the composition of participants give serious grounds to believe this is not a coincidence.”
And the consequence of this “non-coincidence” could be losses for the state company amounting to 1,8 billion UAH.
D.Trading told Nashi Hroshi its position. It considers the accusations unfounded.
How it works
The state company Energoatom, through its enterprise Energoatom-Trading, sells electricity at auctions on the Ukrainian Energy Exchange (UEEX). The state enterprise trades large volumes, reaching 10–15% of all electricity in the country. It divides volumes into lots, and the auctions themselves are held a few days before delivery begins. Prices are also fixed for a certain period, usually ten-day intervals (decades).
Electricity bought at auction is then resold by traders to consumer enterprises. The main benchmark for resale price is the day-ahead market (DAM), where trades are conducted by JSC Market Operator. On that market, every day determines how much electricity will cost tomorrow. So if a trader bought from Energoatom cheaper than the electricity later costs on the DAM, the difference is their profit.
Insider meeting
According to Herus, on 26 October the Ministry of Energy held a meeting convened by one of the deputy ministers. They discussed the need to change Energoatom’s trading strategy to raise prices on the day-ahead market. They decided to raise the state enterprise’s prices. They also discussed that Ukrenergo should open electricity exports during daytime hours. According to Herus’s estimate, export increases demand by 500–750 MW each hour, which also pushes up the price.
State generating companies, Ukrenergo, the NERC, and the deputy director of D.Trading attended the meeting. Other traders were not present.
“In particular, state traders were not invited—neither JSC EKU nor GC Naftogaz Ukraine LLC. So one private buyer became aware of forthcoming changes in Energoatom’s trading behavior and export conditions, while its competitors did not receive such information. That selectivity created an obvious informational advantage for one trader-buyer,” Herus writes.
The European REMIT regulation defines insider information by four characteristics. In the deputy’s view, the information from the 26 October meeting meets each of them:
accuracy – the discussion concerned specific decisions, not general considerations;
non-publicity – the meeting was closed; other buyers were not present;
relation to the wholesale market – both decisions affect supply and demand on the DAM;
material impact on price – the DAM price on 28 October rose by 82,8%.
What happened on the market
The day after the meeting, on 27 October Energoatom held an auction to sell 2 thousand MWh of baseload electricity for 1–10 November. The weighted average price was 5 314 UAH per MWh excluding VAT.
That same 27 October Energoatom radically changed its behavior on the DAM: it submitted all sales bids at significantly higher prices, especially during night hours. At the same time, Energoatom’s auction for November concluded at about 13:02, while the DAM trading results with the sharp price increases became publicly known only later, around 13:40.
Already the next day, 28 October, the average electricity price on the DAM rose by 82,8%: 5 487,50 UAH per MWh versus 3 001,48 UAH. After that the price continued to climb, reaching 11 045,25 UAH on 6 November.
Herus acknowledges: “the cold snap also increased demand, but the weather forecast was equally known to all market participants.” Instead, he calls the change in Energoatom’s trading and the opening of daytime export “insider information available only to one trader-buyer.”
On average over six days, each megawatt-hour that traders bought from Energoatom cost on the DAM 3 784,54 UAH, or 71% more. Potential losses the deputy estimated at about 1,8 billion UAH. This is the difference between Energoatom-Trading’s auction sale price and the traders’ resale price on the DAM. The calculation was made for six of ten days, so the final difference could be smaller or larger.
Herus names seven buyers who together took 805 MW – over 40% of the auction. The largest buyer was D.Trading from Rinat Akhmetov’s group, which, according to the deputy, bought 315 MW. In the previous decade, 21–31 October, the company took much less—about 45 MW.
“The buyer acted as if it knew the price would rise. The state seller acted as if it knew nothing, although it was the one that made the decision that raised the price,” Herus writes.
Besides D.Trading, the deputy named Target Energy and ESG (about 130 MW), LNG Energy (80 MW), TES (60 MW), ESG Trading (55 MW) and Te Power (35 MW).
Therefore the deputy asks to dismiss the management of SE Energoatom-Trading, hold the guilty accountable, terminate contracts resulting from the auction on 27 October and return the unpaid funds to Energoatom, investigate the stated facts and prevent similar situations from recurring.
Herus sent copies of the appeal to the head of the Verkhovna Rada, the head of the Office of the President, the ministers of energy, economy and finance, the head of the NERC, and Energoatom’s supervisory board.
D.Trading’s rebuttal
The company told Nashi Hroshi its position:
D.Trading purchases electricity for its clients from more than 60 Ukrainian producers and regularly participates in open auctions on the Ukrainian Energy Exchange.
Overall, since the beginning of 2026, Energoatom’s share in D.Trading’s total electricity purchases amounted to 3%.
At the auction on 27 October 2026, electricity was bought by 69 companies. D.Trading’s share was 15,7% of the total volume sold at the auction. The purchased volume corresponds to the company’s usual needs for the autumn-winter period. D.Trading’s purchase price was 1,7% higher than the average purchase price of the other auction participants.
D.Trading considers the accusations against the company in connection with its participation in this auction to be unfounded. The company consistently advocates the development of transparent market mechanisms and a competitive environment in the energy market. Open exchange trading is the best guarantee of fair pricing and market stability.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Герус просить звільнити керівництво «Енергоатом-Трейдингу» через ймовірну інсайдерську торгівлю зі збитками 1,8 млрд". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Our Money.
