Two dry cargo ships with more than 45,000 tons of wheat and corn left Ukrainian ports on Friday, the Joint Coordination Center (JCC) reported.
“On January 5, two ships left Ukrainian ports, they are transporting a total of 45.3 thousand tons of grain and other food within the framework of the Black Sea grain initiative,” the report said.
Dry-cargo vessels Lady Divina (18.3 thousand tons of wheat) and Med Island (27 thousand tons of corn) had left to Italy.
Six dry cargo ships, which passed through the humanitarian corridor on January 6, are also on their way to the ports.
“As of January 6, the total tonnage of grain and other agricultural products exported from the three Ukrainian ports is 16,832,561 tons. A total of 1,250 vessels were allowed to move so far: 622 to arrive at Ukrainian ports and 628 to leave them,” the JCC summarized.
We are together – a big Ukrainian family, and wherever we are now – at home, at work, in a trench, on the road, in Ukraine or abroad – our family is more united than ever, said Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in a video greeting on Christmas according to the Julian calendar.
“Unity in its faith in a single victory. We are still bringing it closer. Every day. Still standing for each other, side by side. Every day. We defend our land, our culture, our traditions, our faith. As our ancestors did – the Cossacks – defenders of the faith and the Church of Christ. And just as all their descendants and continuators of the traditions of our army and our people did,” Zelensky said.
“Today, the spirits of our ancestors help us every day. Beat those who came to our land,” the president stressed.
According to him, “we live in a special time and all our holidays are special. And we have to break some of our traditions to protect our traditions.”
“You can’t wear dark or old shabby clothes for the holidays, so that trouble doesn’t come to the house. But trouble came to our house on Feb. 24, 2022, so we haven’t worn white clothes since then and we fight black forces,” he said.
“Guests should be treated with special cordiality and care. Guests, but not occupiers. On the holy day, you can’t clean and take the trash out of the house, but we fight the devils and take the trash out of our house more than three hundred days in a row,” Zelensky continued.
“It is forbidden to sew and knit, but we weave camouflage nets and sew body armor, overcoming evil. Our ancestors didn’t go hunting these days, but we fight not to become prey and defeat the beast. That’s what God sees. The world sees it,” he said.
The president reminded that the “Carol of the Bells” written to music by Nikolai Leontovich is sung in more than 150 variations and the Ukrainian “Shchedrik” gives the Christmas spirit to the whole planet. “The spirit of hope, goodness and wonder. This year this spirit of peace is given not only by our music, but also by Ukrainian courage, indestructibility, defiance, invincibility,” the president said.
“Today we all have the same dream. May accord come to every family, prosperity to every home, victory to the Ukrainian land, and with it a thousand years of peace and prosperity. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a tasty kuti! Take care of yourselves, take care of your families and take care of our Ukraine!” – Zelensky concluded.
Ukrainian agrarians harvested 75.03 million tons of major crops from the total area of 17.96 million hectares by January 6, 2023, 700 thousand tons of corn was harvested from 0.1 million hectares last week, the harvesting of which was previously stopped due to adverse weather conditions.
As reported on the website of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food on Friday, the total area of agricultural land, from which the harvested, increased at the expense of harvested corn by 1 percentage point (p.p.) – to 93% of the previously planned areas.
In terms of crops harvesting of wheat, barley, peas, rapeseed and sugar beets was completed. During the week the area of harvested corn increased by 3 p.p. – to 81% of the planned indicators, while the area of harvested buckwheat (98%), as well as millet, sunflower and soybeans (99%) remained unchanged.
According to Minagropolitiki, the final yield of wheat in the current season amounted to 20.2 million tons from 5 million hectares, barley – 5.8 million tons from 1.7 million hectares, rape – 3.2 million tons from 1.1 million hectares, pea – 269 tons from 118 thousand hectares, sugar beet – 9 million tons from 180 thousand hectares.
In addition, January 6, 22.1 million tons of corn (+0.7 million tons per week) from 3.4 million hectares (+0.1 million hectares), 10.5 million tons of sunflower from 4.8 million hectares, 3.7 million tons of soy from 1.5 million hectares, 158 tons of buckwheat from 116 thousand hectares, and 102 tons of millet from 44.7 thousand hectares were gathered in total.
According to the Ministry, the average yield on all crops in the current season was 46.4 c/ha, including corn – 64.8 c/ha, wheat – 40.5 c/ha, of barley – 34.7 centners/ha, rape – 28.6 centners/ha, soy – 24.3 centners/ha, pea – 22.8 centners/ha, millet – 22.8 centners/ha, sunflower – 21.7 centners/ha, buckwheat – 13.7 centners/ha, sugar beet – 501 centners/ha.
It is reported that farmers of Nikolaev, Odessa, Chernivtsi and Vinnytsia regions have completed the harvesting of all crops. Most cereals and leguminous crops were threshed in Vinnitsa region – 4 million tons, and their highest yield was recorded in Khmelnytsky region – 70.9 c/ha.
As reported, Ukraine in 2021 harvested a record since the independence of cereals, legumes and oilseeds in the amount of 106 million tons: UAH 84 million of cereals and legumes, and 22.6 million tons of oilseeds.
A total of 32.4 million tons of wheat, 40 million tons of corn, 10 million tons of barley, 581.5 thousand tons of peas, 191 thousand tons of millet and 110 tons of buckwheat were harvested last year. Sunflower harvest amounted to 16.3 million tons, soybeans – 3.4 million tons and rapeseed – 2.9 million tons.
The Cabinet of Ministers at a meeting on Friday appointed Oleg Tolmachov as acting director general of Ukrhazvydobuvannya instead of Alexander Romaniuk and Roman Malyutin as acting director general of Ukrtranshaz instead of Serhiy Pereloma.
This was reported by the Naftogaz group on Friday evening.
“Roman Malyutin and Oleg Tolmachev are high-class specialists with considerable experience in the oil and gas sector. They are well acquainted with global experience, but have also worked hard in Ukraine and understand the challenges we are currently facing,” said Naftogaz Group head Alexey Chernyshov.
Oleg Tolmachev, who headed Naftogaz Group’s Naftogaz Upstream division, became Ukrhazvydobuvannya’s acting director.
Oleg Tolmachev has more than 20 years of experience in hydrocarbon production in North America. He has held senior positions in gas production companies in the US such as BP America, Chesapeake Energy, EnCana Oil & Gas USA, Eclipse Resources and Montage Resources. In particular, he led high-tech projects to develop large gas and gas condensate fields in North America. Among his responsibilities were increasing the economic efficiency of projects, formation and management of multifunctional teams (geology, development, drilling, production, preparation and processing of hydrocarbons).
Roman Malyutin, who has over 20 years of experience at gas transmission and storage companies, was appointed Acting Head of Ukrtransgas JSC, the operator of all Ukrainian underground gas storages.
Roman Malyutin went all the way from an operator and engineer at Kegichevsk UGS to Deputy Chief Engineer of the eastern region of the Ukrainian Gas Transmission System Operator. For the last year and a half he headed the technical department of Ukrtransgas JSC, where he was responsible for the operation of compressor stations, areas of energy and metrology, and also accompanied projects to develop low-carbon technologies and storage of hydrogen mixtures.
Net sales of dollars by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), after jumping to $1 billion 101.79 million in the last week of last year, fell to $674.7 million in the first week of the new year.
According to the National Bank on its website, it bought $7.9 million from Jan. 2 to 6, which corresponds to the usual volume of purchases during the war, while it sold $682.6 million, compared to $1 billion 101.79 million a week earlier.
At the cash market the dollar went up again at the level of about 40.75 UAH/$1, but the spread has narrowed a bit.
As we informed, the volume of the NBU’s interventions in December increased to $3.16 bln from $1.57 bln in November and $2.03 bln in October.
Overall for 2022, the NBU bought $3 billion 268.0 million and EUR111.0 million from the market and sold $26 billion 380.6 million and EUR1 billion 789.1 million.
Including the purchase of foreign currency has reached $2 billion 611.1 million and EUR111.0 million since the war began, while the sale – $23 billion 610.4 million and EUR1 billion 789.1 million.
International reserves of the National Bank increased by 1.9% or $536.4 million in December to $28.491 billion due to currency receipts from international partners, which exceeded the NBU interventions to sell foreign currency to support the fixed rate.
Overall, they fell by 7.9%, or $2.45 bln in 2022.
Ukraine imported 669.4 thousand generators in 2022, MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak (Golos faction) said.
“Of these, 643.8 thousand generators were imported by enterprises, 25.5 thousand were imported by citizens (about 4% of the total),” he wrote in his Telegram Channel on Friday.
According to Zheleznyak, almost half of the generators were imported in December – 309.4 thousand, 52 times more than at the beginning of the year, when just over 6 thousand were imported in January.
The MP noted that demand has steadily increased during the year, although fewer generators were imported in March – 4.6 thou.
