The introduction of private-public partnership in Ukraine, which is stipulated by the law, has not yet received wide acceptance and thus does not bring expected results.
The article’s objective consists in the formulation of the concept on the main tendencies of the development of private-public partnership in the energy infrastructure of foreign countries and revealing the possibilities and problems of its use in Ukraine.
Research on the possibilities of the use of private-public partnership in Ukraine has shown that today this form of interaction between state and business is the most acceptable one for the modernization of the energy infrastructure, which is now in a difficult situation.
Russia’s experience has shown that the main form of private-public partnership in the power sector are concessions, but, in Ukraine, concession agreements have not become an efficient mechanism for attracting investments even after the approval of ""The Law on Concessions”.
Analysis of the use of private-public partnership in Ukraine in order to modernize the power sector based on PPP principles has been hampered by a series of obstacles including the imperfect legislation and the absence of strict models for risk distribution etc. Any discrepancies and risks emerging in the course of realization of PPP projects should betaken into account and explained in corresponding documents and regulations. Unfortunately, in Ukraine, the legal base for PPP projects is not so perfect so the state should act as initiator of the adoption of new laws and guarantor of the compliance with the regulations. Only in this case it is possible to attain investors’ confidence and lower risks.

Keywords:infrastructure, power sector, priority guidelines, mechanisms and instruments of modernization, private-public partnership

The authors consider the problem of the diversification of the imports of natural gas to Ukraine in the context of the European policy energy security. The problem of the diversification of sources and ways of the supplies of imported natural gas was, in one or other form, posed in all important strategic documents related to the national energy policy. However, in practice, main attention was given to the economy (replacement) of the consumed volumes and the negotiations about the price for the critical imports of Russian natural gas. The economic nature of the differences in the prices for Russian gas for different European countries suggests about the presence of additional non-economic factors. Unfortunately, neither the Energy Charter Treatyno the membership in European Energy Community gave Ukraine any symmetric effects and did not become a guarantee of the national energy security under the dictate of the Russian gas monopolist in the region. The authors analyze the main factors, which will affect the solution of the problem the diversification in the context of the further progress of Ukraine's European integration.
The authors analyze the potential of Ukraine's natural gas deposits and the tendencies of the change in the shares of natural gas in the national energy structure. During the recent decade, Ukraine's oil and gas industries have been characterized by general stability of the extraction. However, the possibilities of the expansion of oil and gas extraction are limited because the main deposits are greatly exhausted, and the explored reserves are not mastered because of the lack of sufficient investment resources. Since 2006, due to the sharp increase in the contract price, there has been a clear tendency towards decrease in the consumption and imports of natural gas in Ukraine. However, even now 66% of the imported natural gas comes from a single supplier, which is Gazprom. Ukraine's gas transmission system is the second in biggest in Europe and one of the biggest in the world. But its technological level is in a constant decline. By expert estimates, the modernization of the gas transmission system would cost about 3 bln USD. However, due to the political uncertainty, despite the declared intentions, no investments have ever come to the modernization of the gas transmission infrastructure.
The authors have carried out a comparative analysis of technological and economic characteristics of different variants (projects) of the diversification of supplies of natural gas to Ukraine. Among the possible variants of the diversification of sources and routes of natural gas import to Ukraine, which are now most often discussed in the expert circles are the following: reversible supplies from Europe through the system of LNG-terminals; Ukrainian LNG-terminal; expansion (construction) of a LNG-terminal in Turkey; the Trans Anatolian Pipeline. The authors define the main possibilities, problems, risks and effects from the realization of the alternative projects. It has been established that all possible variants of the diversification of natural gas import to Ukraine involve certain economic and political risks. The main factor of success of the diversification of natural gas import at the European level is not even the availability of proper infrastructure, but a certainty of prospective availability of sufficient volumes of liquid natural gas supplies from the main exporters, including USA. Unfortunately, the absence of a contract platform (in the form of a framework agreement) between all main participants of the regional natural gas market prevents the investors from being sure in the profitability of diversification projects on the European market as a whole and in Ukraine in particular. That is why Ukraine should conduct a more active policy as to the realization of potential strategies of the diversification of natural gas supplies and avoiding the above mentioned risks.

Keywords: energy security, natural gas market, diversification, strategy, strategema, integration, inter-connector, gas hub, investments