Business news from Ukraine

Business news from Ukraine

MRIYA AGROHOLDING PLANS TO SOW WINTER CROPS ON 100,000 HA

KYIV. July 30 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Mriya agroholding has started sowing winter crops for the 2016 harvest and plans to sow them on around 100,000 hectares, the company said in a press release.

The company said that winter rapeseeds will be sowed on over 20,000 hectares which as already begun.

The agroholding is restoring and expanding its technical fleet to ensure stable operations during the sowing and harvesting campaigns. Over the past three months the company bought and leased machinery worth over $55 million. In the near future, harvesters for sunflower seeds, tractors and self-propelled spraying machines will be supplied.

Mriya was founded in 1992 by Ivan and Klavdiya Huta. It grows wheat, barley, rapeseeds, sugar beet, buckwheat, and potatoes.

In August, 2014, Mriya reported arrears worth $9 million of interest earnings and nearly $120 million of debt held under the company’s obligations. Mriya’s total debt equaled $1.3 billion when the company’s bankruptcy was announced.

Mriya’s creditors have not agreed on debt restructuring programs. In January 2015, a temporary liquidator from British Virgin Islands was appointed to run Mriya under a court ruling. Operation control over the agroholding was passed to creditors who elected new top managers of the company.

RUSAL PLANS TO INCREASE CAPACITY OF MYKOLAIV ALUMINA PLANT BY 100,000 TONNES IN 2018

KYIV. July 30 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Rusal (Russia) intends to complete the construction of facilities to expand the production capacity of Mykolaiv alumina plant from 1.6 million tonnes to 1.7 million tonnes in 2018.

“We will complete building facilities to expand the production capacity to 1.7 million tonnes in 2018,” the plant said in a press release.

The plant said that in 2014, it implemented the first phase of a project on the shipment of alumina in soft wagon inserts, which allowed the company to ship up to 50,000 tonnes of alumina per month. In 2015, the plant completed the implementation of the second phase of the project to increase alumina shipment in soft wagon inserts to 80,000 tonnes per month, which allowed for saving about $15 million a year. This year, the plant will modernize railway scales at the alumina loading site, which will increase wagon loading and reduce costs for goods transportation.

Some UAH 339.6 million was paid to budgets of different levels in 2014, while in the first half of 2015 – UAH 265 million.

Mykolaiv alumina plant is the only Rusal company present in Ukraine, which produces gallium. The volume of its production exceeds 13 tonnes per year, accounting for about 10% of global production of this metal.

ARCELORMITTAL TEMIRTAU PLANS TO INCREASE STEEL PRODUCTION 43% BY 2017

ASTANA. July30. (Interfax) – Kazakhstan-based ArcelorMittal Temirtau plans to increase steel production to 5 million tonnes by 2017, the company’s CEO Vijay Mahadevan said.

ArcelorMittal Temirtau has plans to upgrade Furnace No.4 and intends to repair two sinter machines within two years. All this would allow the company to reach production level of 5 million tonnes of crude steel a year but all would depend on the global market demand, Mahadevan told Interfax.

In 2014, steel production amounted to 3.5 million tonnes of steel, according to data posted on the company’s website, so output may increase 43% in by 2017.

Mahadevan also said the metallurgical company keeps to its plans to produce 3.7 million tonnes of steel this year as planned earlier.

ArcelorMittal Temirtau (formerly Ispat Karmet), the largest steel plant in Kazakhstan, is part of Arcelor Mittal, the world’s largest steel company. The group acquired the Kazakh plant in mid 1990s and made it a fully integrated metal combine, with early production reaching 5.5 million tonnes. The company owns eight coalmines in the Karaganda Region and four iron ore mines in Karaganda, Akmola and Kostanai regions.

BUNGE UKRAINE EXPORTS 3.9 MLN TONNES OF CROPS IN 2014/15 AGRI-YEAR

KYIV. July 30 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Bunge Ukraine, one of the largest traders and producers of sunflower oil in Ukraine, exported 3.9 million tonnes of grain, soybeans and rapeseeds in the 2014/15 agricultural year.

“In the 2014/15 agri-year our turnover in Ukraine was $1.1 billion. We exported almost 3.9 million tonnes of grain, soybeans and rapeseeds, and our Dnipropetrovsk crushing plant produced around 150,000 tonnes of unrefined oil, 50% of which was exported, and refined oil was made from the rest of the oil,” Bunge Ukraine Director General Dmytro Horshunov said in an interview with the Forbes publication.

He said that the share of grain exports of the company’s turnover in Ukraine is around 75%. The rest of revenue is generated thanks to sale of oil.

With the commissioning of Mykolaiv crushing plant, the ratio will become 60% (exports of crops) to 40% (sales of oil).

“If we speak about the share of sales of bottled oil in Ukraine, according to Nielsen’s report for May 2015, it is 23%. According to our internal assessments, it is around 27%,” he said.

He said that the share of unrefined oil sales for exports is 3-4%. With the launch of Mykolaiv crushing plant, oil sales could grow by at least three or four times.

Horshunov confirmed plans to launch a crushing plant at Mykolaiv seaport with a capacity of 2,400 tonnes of sunflower seeds or 1,700 tonnes of soybeans a day. Its launch would boost crushing by 2.6 times and reach the total production capacity of 570,000 tonnes of crude oil a year, which would boost exports by at least 350,000 tonnes a year, to 450,000-470,000 tonnes.

Bunge operates in the agricultural products and food market.

The key assets of Bunge in Ukraine are Dnipropetrovsk oil extraction plant and subsidiary Suntrade (Kyiv). The company also has a grain terminal at Mykolaiv port.

KSG AGRO PORK SALES RISE 24% IN Q2 2015

KYIV. July 30 (Interfax-Ukraine) – KSG Agro agroholding saw a 24% rise in sales of live weight pork year-over-year, to UAH 62 million (VAT included), the company said on its website.

The company said that its revenue from pork sales totaled UAH 112 million in H1 2015 (VAT included).

Most of the produce was sold under long-term contracts and 67% of sales were secured by meat-packing plant Yuvileiny and Fozzy-Food LLC. About 20% of the products were sold to Dnipro meat processing plant.

“Production growth in a difficult economic situation has been achieved thanks to the professionalism of the employees and their responsible attitude to work,” the company said.

KSG Аgro is a vertically integrated agricultural group, working in almost all the segments of the agricultural market, including the production, storage, processing, and sale of agricultural products. The total arable land leased by the company is around 65,000 hectares.

UKRAINE, IRAN TO HOLD TALKS ON ECONOMIC COOPERATION AT LEVEL OF INTERGOVERNMENTAL COMMISSION ON SEPT 15

KYIV. July 30 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine and Iran will on September 15 hold talks on economic cooperation at the level of an intergovernmental commission for the first time in ten years, Mykhailo Bno-Airiian, head of the Ukrainian ministry’s Department for European Integration, said at a press conference in Kyiv on Wednesday.

“On September 15, if everything is good, we will hold a meeting of the Ukrainian-Iranian intergovernmental commission in Teheran. The energy minister [of Ukraine Volodymyr Demchyshyn] and the agriculture minister of Iran [Mahmoud Hojjati] will co-chair the commission. I think that it would be the first meeting in ten years, so you can understand the importance of the event,” he said.

He added that the first meeting of the Ukrainian-Norwegian intergovernmental commission on trade development is scheduled for H2 2015.

In addition, Ukraine plans to hold a meeting of the working group for energy with the Czech Republic and Sweden in H2 2015.