PJSC Ukrnafta is working on implementing projects to generate energy from its own gas with a total capacity of up to 370 MW.
According to the company’s press release, this was announced by Duncan Nightingale, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Ukrnafta, during the World Economic Forum in Davos.
He thanked the governments of Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and the United States, as well as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) for their support on the path to sustainable development and invited new partners to join the implementation of ambitious promising projects.
“We need to invest in Ukraine now. If you wait for the war to end, you may lose the most profitable projects,” Nightingale emphasized.
For his part, EBRD Vice President Matteo Patrone noted the positive financial results achieved by the company and improvements in the management system.
“They (Ukrnafta – IF-U) have demonstrated not only excellent financial results, but also true corporate governance. This is the achievement of Sergiy (Koretsky) and the Board. If two years ago I had been asked whether we would support Ukrnafta, I would have said no. But what has happened over the past 18 months is simply amazing,” he said.
“Ukrnafta is Ukraine’s largest oil producer and operator of a national network of filling stations. In March 2024, the company took over the management of Glusco’s assets and operates 547 filling stations – 462 owned and 85 managed.
The company is implementing a comprehensive program to restore operations and update the format of its filling stations. Since February 2023, the company has been issuing its own fuel coupons and NAFTAKarta cards, which are sold to legal entities and individuals through Ukrnafta-Postach LLC.
“Ukrnafta holds 92 special permits for commercial development of fields. It has 1832 oil and 154 gas production wells on its balance sheet.
Ukrnafta’s largest shareholder is Naftogaz of Ukraine with a 50%+1 share.
In November 2022, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine decided to transfer to the state a share of corporate rights of the company owned by private owners, which is currently managed by the Ministry of Defense.
Ukraine is planning to open refugee return centers in several European countries, Denik N reported on Friday.
“After almost three years of full-scale Russian invasion, Ukraine is preparing plans to return some of the millions of refugees to their homeland. Therefore, it intends to open centers in several European countries to facilitate their return,” Denik N reports.
Last week, Ukraine opened its first center in Berlin in cooperation with Germany. Ukraine has also discussed this project with Poland. Another similar center may be established in the Czech Republic. According to Denik N, a meeting of officials from the two countries to discuss the creation of a similar center is scheduled for next week in Prague.
Since the beginning of 2024-2025 marketing year (July-June) and as of January 24, Ukraine exported 24.475 mln tonnes of grains and pulses, of which 2.514 mln tonnes were shipped this month, the press service of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food reported, citing the data of the State Customs Service of Ukraine.
According to the report, as of the same date last year, the total shipments amounted to 22.246 mln tons, including 3.682 mln tons in January.
In terms of crops, since the beginning of the current season, the country has exported 10.563 mln tonnes of wheat (650 thsd tonnes in January), 2.035 mln tonnes of barley (36 thsd tonnes), 10.8 thsd tonnes of rye (0), and 11.729 mln tonnes of corn (1.82 mln tonnes).
Thus, the volume of wheat exports for 2024/2025 MY agreed by the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and grain market participants at 16.2 mln tonnes has already been exhausted by 65%.
The total exports of Ukrainian flour since the beginning of the season as of January 24 are estimated at 41.6 thsd tonnes (4 thsd tonnes in January), including 38.2 thsd tonnes of wheat (3.7 thsd tonnes).
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has suspended programs that allowed immigrants to temporarily settle in the United States, including a key initiative that provides entry for Ukrainians, The New York Times reported on Friday.
“The directive, contained in an email sent by a senior U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services official on Thursday and obtained by The New York Times, calls for an immediate halt to ‘final decisions’ on applications related to these programs while the administration reviews them and decides whether to terminate them,” The New York Times writes.
The affected programs include the “Unite for Ukraine” initiative, a Biden-era initiative that allowed Ukrainian immigrants to temporarily enter the United States if they had financial sponsors. According to the government, as of September 2023, more than 150,000 Ukrainians had entered under this program.
Metinvest Group’s Kametstal plant, which was built at the facilities of Dnipro Metallurgical Plant (DMK, Kamenskoye, Dnipro Oblast), put a T-8 power transformer into operation at the DRZ-10 substation, the main consumer of which is the BOF shop, after a major overhaul in December.
According to the press release, a systematic approach to the renewal of electrical equipment is an effective component of the stable operation of the main production equipment. The power engineers of the Grids and Substations Shop carried out an overhaul and implemented an investment project under the 2024 Program aimed at improving the reliability of the steelmaking process.
The full range of repair measures made it possible to restore all electrical characteristics of the transformer and ensure its stable and uninterrupted operation during the overhaul period. The service life of the equipment has been extended.
An important investment project was also implemented at the filter-compensating device substation – FCD-35 kV, which is consumed by the out-of-furnace steel treatment section of the BOF Shop, namely two ladle furnaces. Its main task was to modernize the switchgear cells with improved insulation characteristics, which largely determine the trouble-free operation of electrical equipment.
“Kametstal was created on the basis of PJSC Dneprovsky Coke and Chemical Plant (DKKhZ) and Centralized Steel Works of PJSC Dneprovsky Metallurgical Plant (DMK).
According to the 2020 report of Metinvest Group’s parent company, Metinvest B.V. (Netherlands) owned 100% of the shares in DCCP.
On January 23, the Berlin Gemäldegalerie hosted the grand opening of the exhibition “From Odesa to Berlin. European painting of the XVI-XIX centuries”. The exhibition includes 60 paintings from the collection of the Odesa Museum of Western and Oriental Art, as well as works from Berlin collections.
The ceremony was attended by Federal President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine Mykola Tochytskyi, Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media, State Minister Claudia Roth, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation Hermann Partzinger, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to Germany Oleksiy Makeev.
In his speech,Frank-Walter Steinmeier emphasized that the exhibition demonstrates that Russia’s bloody war of aggression is also a war against Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian identity. At the same time, the exhibition emphasizes the courage and determination of Ukrainians in protecting their cultural heritage.
The German President emphasized the importance of the exhibits from the museum in Odesa, which were saved from Russian attacks and brought to Berlin. He called for continued support for Ukraine in its struggle for its culture and expressed hope for the paintings’ speedy return to independent Ukraine.
In turn, Mykola Tochytskyi expressed his gratitude to the German partners for supporting joint efforts to protect Ukraine’s cultural identity. He emphasized that Ukrainian culture is an integral part of European culture. At the same time, the patronage of the exhibition of masterpieces from the Odesa Museum of Western and Eastern Art is an important practical step in developing a cultural dialogue between Ukrainians and Germans.
“Joint cultural events help the German audience to get to know Ukrainian culture better, to see its vulnerability in the face of Russian aggression and to understand why it is so important to protect it,” the Minister emphasized. “Russians can destroy a museum and a building, but they cannot erase cultural memory. The barbaric attack on Ukrainian culture is an attack on Europe.”
As a reminder, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the staff of the Museum of Western and Eastern Art in Odesa evacuated the most valuable paintings to a safe place. In September 2023, 74 works of art were delivered to the German capital, and in February 2024, about a dozen paintings became part of an exhibition at an art gallery in Berlin. Now visitors will have the opportunity to see another 60 paintings from the Odesa museum. Among them are works by Francesco Granacci, a representative of the Florentine school, Rulant Saverey, a master of etching and an outstanding artist from the golden age of Dutch painting, as well as the German landscape painter Andreas Achenbach.
Exhibition “From Odesa to Berlin” opens in Berlin under the patronage of the President of GermanyThe project is implemented under the patronage of the President of the Federal Republic of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier and with the support of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media Claudia Roth.
Theexhibition at the Berlin Art Gallery will run until June 22, 2025.
