Oil prices continue to decline Tuesday afternoon on concerns over the U.S. government debt ceiling.
Brent crude futures for July on London’s ICE Futures exchange stood at $76 a barrel by 1:44 p.m. Tuesday, down $1.07 (1.39%) from the previous session’s close.
The price of WTI crude futures for July on the electronic trading of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) was down by that time by $0.84 (1.16%), to $71.83 a barrel.
On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on the debt ceiling agreement before it goes to the Senate.
Active opponents of the agreement in both houses of parliament could slow its passage, The Wall Street Journal noted. Some conservative lawmakers have already said they would not support the deal because it does not sufficiently limit budget spending, while progressive Democrats believe the spending cuts are excessive.
“This uncertainty is keeping oil prices up,” said Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Suzanne Streeter, whose words are cited by Barron’s.
In addition, traders expect another OPEC meeting on Sunday.
The organization will not take any further steps until it sees the effect of lower production quotas, according to ANZ.
PJSC Vetropack Gostomelsk Glass Works (Kyiv Region) has resumed operations, having started warming up and bringing it to operating temperature, as well as loading the first glass furnace; the first glass is expected to be produced in June, the plant’s press service said.
“The domestic market is slowly resuming, and many companies have restarted production. We expect demand for food and beverage glass containers to increase by about 7% in 2023 compared to the previous year, in parallel with the development of our production facilities,” said Pavel Prinko, general director of Vetropack in Ukraine and Moldova.
According to the company, Vetropack will start with the production of colorless glass for food and beverages, as the company now sees the greatest demand for it. The second glass furnace will be commissioned in the near future.
Protection of employees will be a priority in the resumption of operations. In addition, the production site is prepared for all possible emergency scenarios. Vetropack Holding has developed various engineering scenarios to ensure power supply during a power outage. The power distribution system has been rebuilt and additional generators have been installed. There are also appropriate plans in place for possible natural gas outages, the company’s press office said.
The company reminded that before the war Vetropack in Ukraine produced different types of glass containers on three furnaces and eight production lines. On February 24, 2022 the production was stopped for security reasons. One of the three furnaces at the plant was destroyed due to military action. The losses forced the company to cut about two-thirds of its roughly 600 jobs at the plant. Vetropack has now hired 139 new employees to restart production from among its former employees.
In the summer of 2022, Vetropack created a fund to support employees who were seriously injured or whose homes or apartments were destroyed. Money was donated by employees of other businesses, business partners and customers, and CHF960,000 was raised in a few months. In early 2023, the Gostomel Holding Vetropack fund began its first payments. In April 2023, Vetropack supported more than 50 affected colleagues.
Vetropack Gostomel Glassworks PJSC since 2006 is a part of European Vetropack Group, a large producer of glass containers with production plants in Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Czech Republic, Croatia and Slovakia. Produces containers for domestic producers of food and beverages – more than 600 million pieces per year.
The main market for manufactured containers is Ukraine, the main customers – Sun InBev Ukraine, Carlsberg Ukraine, Coca-Cola, Obolon PJSC, Radomyshl Brewery, Persha Privatna Brovarnya LLC, KIM Ltd.
“Vetropack Gostomel Glass Plant,” according to opendatabot.ua, in 2022, reduced its assets by 1.6 times to 1.52 billion UAH. The losses of the company reached 903.66 million UAH, compared with 140.88 million UAH of profit in 2021. Income of the company in 2022 decreased 3.9 times to UAH 621.52 mln.
Vetropack Group (Switzerland) currently has about 3 thousand employees in seven countries, produces about 4.5 billion pieces of glass containers annually.
Ministry of Economy suggests raising minimum wage from 2024 to UAH 7651 a month from the current UAH 6,700, according to Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine (FTU) at May 25 meeting of joint working commission of trade unions, employers and government on fixing minimum wage.
With reference to the Deputy Minister of Economy Tatiana Berezhnaya said that the Ministry of Economy has already sent a proposal to the Ministry of Finance.
In addition, the agency is in favor of increasing the official salary of the employee I wage rate level UTS, frozen since December 1, 2021 at the level of UAH 2893 to UAH 3443.
At the same time, it is pointed out that, according to the Ministry of Social Policy, the actual size of the cost of living for able-bodied persons in prices of April 2023 was 7782 UAH per month.
According to Berezhnaya, the Ministry of Economy is also in the process of revising preliminary indicators of macro forecast for the next budget period, which the Finance Ministry expects by June 19, 2023, as part of the preparation of the state budget 2024.
The deputy head of the FPU Vasyl Andreev and the head of the department of budget and remuneration of labor apparatus of the FPU Svetlana Makonyuk said that trade unions offer to set the minimum wage in 2024 at 9435 UAH – not lower than the actual size of the cost of living for employable persons in light of the forecast consumer price index 2023.
They also recalled that the EU recommends setting the minimum wage at 50% of the average wage
In turn, representative of the employers Sergei Bilenky noted that they expect to increase the minimum wage by 10-15% of the current level in 2024.
As reported, since October 1, 2022 the minimum wage in Ukraine increased by 200 UAH – up to 6700 UAH.
Stalkanat PJSC (Odessa) received net profit amounting to UAH 3 billion 227.799 million following the results of its work in 2022, while in 2021 it was not, because the enterprise was in the process of creation due to its separation from Stalkanat-Silur PJSC.
According to the company’s annual report, in 2022, Stalkanat received a net profit of 325.073 million UAH, while in 2021 it finished with a net loss of 309 thousand UAH.
The average number of employees of the company in 2022 – 916 people, in 2021 – 16 people.
According to the report, owners of the shares in 2022 were paid dividends amounting to 197.185 million UAH.
The auditors note that since the company was registered on December 6, 2021, the data for 2021 are not comparable for 2022.
As it was reported, in January-March of this year, Stalkanat increased its net profit by 2.2 times compared to the same period last year – up to UAH 77.304 million, net income for this period decreased by 3.2% – to UAH 701.047 million. Undistributed profit as of March 31, 2023 constituted UAH 234,019 mln.
The general meeting of shareholders, which took place on September 3, 2021, decided to separate PJSC Stalkanat-Silur and create a new company – Stalkanat with the transfer of its property, rights and obligations according to the approved distribution balance sheet. Assets of PrJSC Stalkanat were based on the distribution balance sheet and act of acceptance dated December 31, 2021.
PJSC “PA “Stalkanat-Silur” (Odessa) previously had two branches – in Odessa and Khartsyzsk, Donetsk region on NKT. On December 1, 2016, the company’s management officially notified about the shutdown of the company’s branch in Khartsyzsk – a relevant announcement was published in the Uryadovy Kurier newspaper. Later, the management of PAO Stalkanat-Silur PJSC stated about the seizure of the company’s branch in Khartsyzsk on NKT, sent a corresponding statement to the National Police.
According to the company, as of the end of 2022, David Nemirovskyy (Ukraine) has 50.0001% in PJSC Stalkanat, Anton Mikhalenko – 23.7%, Adery Liron (both in Israel) – 23.1% and Vitaliy Dubovych (Ukraine) – 3.1999%.
The registered capital of Stalkanat PJSC is UAH 17.736 mln, and the par value of one share is UAH 0.17.
The Verkhovna Rada has supported drone production in Ukraine by exempting components of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from value added tax and import duty for the time being.
Bills No. 9275 and 9276 were voted for by 284 and 289 people’s deputies at the plenary session of the Verkhovna Rada on Monday in the first reading and as a whole, respectively, parliamentarian Yaroslav Zheleznyak (Golos faction) said in a Telegram.
The bills amend the Tax and Customs Codes and help optimize UAV production and supply processes.
In particular, for the duration of martial law, components (materials, units, equipment units, components) of UAVs that enterprises import for their own activities for the production and repair of unmanned aerial vehicles are exempt from VAT and import duty.
Ukraine’s total national debt in April 2023 increased by 3.6% and reached a new historic high: in dollar terms – by $4.37 billion, to $124.28 billion, in UAH – by 159.9 billion, to UAH 4 trillion 544.9 billion, according to the Ministry of Finance.
According to them, the direct national debt over the previous month rose by 4.0% – to $115.08 billion, or UAH 4 trillion 208.3 billion, amounting to 92.6% of the total public debt and publicly guaranteed debt.
It is reported that the external direct debt in April increased by $4.68 billion – to $75.79 billion, while the domestic direct – reduced by 8.0 billion UAH to UAH 1 trillion 436.7 billion (the equivalent of $39.29 billion).
The aggregate external public debt of Ukraine in April 2023 increased by 5.9%, or $4.61 billion – to $83.11 billion, while the total domestic – decreased by 0.6%, or 8.6 billion UAH, to 1 trillion 505.5 billion UAH.
As a result, the share of total external public debt in April increased from 65.5% to 66.9%.
According to the Ministry of Finance, the share of obligations in euros at the end of April rose to 26.02%, in Canadian dollars – to 2.57%, in SDR – to 13.24%, while in U.S. dollars it fell to 27.11%, in UAH – to 30.24%, in Yen – 0.80% and in British pounds remained at 0.02%.
The Ministry also specified that 65.18% of the state debt had a fixed interest rate, whereas 13.24% was tied to the IMF rate, 6.42% – to SOFR, 0.92% – to Libor, 3.77% – to EURIBOR.
The rate of another 3.19% of the government debt is tied to the consumer price index, while 6.93% is tied to the NBU discount rate. We are talking about government bonds from the portfolio of the National Bank. The most recent ones are the securities tied to the discount rate, which the NBU bought within the frames of budget emission financing.
Finally, 0.33% of the government debt is linked to the Ukrainian index of interest rates on deposits of individuals, used in portfolio guarantee programs.
Since the beginning of 2023, the total national debt of Ukraine increased by 11.6%: $12.89 billion in dollar equivalent and UAH 471.4 billion.
As previously reported, the public debt and publicly guaranteed debt of Ukraine in 2022 increased by $ 13.4 billion – up to 78.5% of GDP from 48.9% at the end of 2021.
