President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky during a working visit to Odesa region was informed on the implementation of the project of reconstruction and construction of the Odesa International Airport airfield complex, the president’s press office announced.
Minister of Infrastructure Vladyslav Krykliy noted that the new runway of Odesa airport is 2,800 meters in length and 45 meters in width. The new airfield will allow to accommodate airplanes in category D designated for mid- and long-duration flights, in particular, Boeing-747-400/800, in category III ICAO and other aircraft with a capacity up to 300 passengers. The overall cost of the aerodrome reconstruction project totals UAH 3.9 billion.
The minister added that the new runway will allow Odesa airport to receive more than 2 million passengers a year, a new taxi strip, when constructed, to receive more than 5 million.
Zelensky inquired if there was a passenger demand for the construction of a new airport strip.
“There is a demand, of course, because Odesa is a tourist city, it is developing. This year, the Travel Ukraine program was launched, and Odesa airport accepted too many passengers, even despite COVID-19 challenges we face today,” Krykliy said.
Interpipe, an international vertically integrated pipe and wheel company, based on the results of activities in the second quarter of this year is expected to reduce revenue by 16% compared to the previous quarter, to $ 212 million, EBITDA by 44%, to about $ 48 million.
“We expect Interpipe’s Q2, 2020 EBITDA to amount to about $ 48 million, a 44% quarter-over-quarter plunge. Contributions to Q2, 2020 EBITDA by segment (before reallocation of steel segment EBITDA) are expected to be as follows: negative $ 5 million from pipes (flat quarter-over-quarter), $ 38 million from railway products (a 45% plunge quarter-over-quarter), and $ 15 million from steel (26% less quarter-over-quarter),” according to the estimate of Dmytro Khoroshun, an analyst from Concorde Capital, published in the investment company’s bulletin.
“Revenue from seamless pipe sales should have inched up 3% quarter-over-quarter, to about $ 104 million in Q2, 2020, driven by a 6% increase in sales volumes to 103,000 tonnes, offset by a 3% drop in average sales price to $ 1,015/tonne,” the report says.
“We estimate revenue from welded pipe sales will jump 49% quarter-over-quarter in Q2, 2020, to $ 16 million, due to a 43% gain in volume to 22,000 tonnes and a 4% rise in price to $ 746/tonne,” according to the document.
“We calculate Interpipe’s railway product segment revenue will plunge 34% quarter-over-quarter, to $ 84 million in 2Q20, as a 20% drop in sales volume to 46,000 tonnes will be exacerbated by a 17% drop in price to $ 1,822/tonne,” the expert said.
Ukraine increased the import of nickel ore and concentrate by 30% in January-August 2020 compared to the same period in 2019, to 1.12 million tonnes.
According to statistics released by the State Customs Service, in monetary terms the import of nickel ore grew by 31.2%, to $55.706 million.
Ukraine did not export and re-export these products in January-August 2020, while the country supplied 7,999 tonnes of nickel ore to Greece for $322,000 in the same period in 2019.
Pobuzhky Ferronickel Plant (part of Solway Group) imports nickel ore to Ukraine.
The plant processes about 1.2 million tonnes of ore per year.
INGO Life Insurance Company (Kyiv) in January-June 2020 collected UAH 23.7 million of insurance premiums, which is 4.4% more compared to the same period a year earlier, the insurer said in a press release.
According to the report, the total amount of paid insurance claim fees by the company for this period was UAH 6.2 million, of which for death cases some UAH 286,500, for cases of disability some UAH 394,200, for cases of hospitalization and temporary loss of working capacity some UAH 1.6 million, due to critical illness some UAH 3.648 million.
It is also indicated that in the first half of the year, payments were made under long-term accumulative insurance contracts related to the survival of the insured person until the end of the insurance period for a total amount of UAH 224,400.
The largest payments for the first quarter were UAH 1 million, UAH 734,300 and UAH 605,300 in connection with the diagnosis of a critical illness.
In November 2007, INGO Life received a perpetual license to carry out life insurance activities. Since April 26, 2013, INGO Life has been representing the interests of Generali Employee Benefits (GEB) in Ukraine.
Since the beginning of the new 2020/2021 agricultural year (July-June) and as of September 14, Ukraine exported 9.44 million tonnes of cereals and legumes, which is 1.68 million tonnes less (due to corn) than on this date last agri-year.
According to the information and analytical portal of the agro-industrial complex of Ukraine, to date, 6.33 million tonnes of wheat, 2.47 million tonnes of barley and 0.61 million tonnes of corn (1.28 million tonnes less) have been exported.
As of September 14 this year, 40,900 tonnes of flour were also exported.
As reported, in the 2019/2020 agri-year Ukraine exported a record of 57.2 million tonnes of grains, legumes and flour, which is 13.5% more than in the previous agri-year.
The Big Construction program and plans to increase the share of cement concrete roads in Ukraine give reason to hope for the growth of the cement industry, Director of the Ukrcement cement producers association Roman Skilsky has said.
“The main reason for optimism is the Big Construction program… This will mean a noticeable increase in demand for cement, which will allow domestic companies to increase the number of idle reserve capacities,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
Skilsky said that early August, the Shulgin State Road Research Institute, together with Ukrainian Automobile Roads Agency of Ukraine (Ukravtodor), presented a concept and program for the construction of cement concrete roads in Ukraine, which envisage an increase in the number of such roads from 1% to 5% in the next five years. According to him, the process of approval of these documents by the relevant central executive authorities is underway.
At the same time, he said that in the Czech Republic the share of such roads is 22%, and in Germany – 42%.
The head of Ukrcement also counts on the positive impact of the law on the supply of construction products in the market on the industry. The document was adopted by the Verkhovna Rada on September 2 within the framework of European integration, which implements the provisions of Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 of the Council of Europe regarding construction products. Skilsky said that the industry harmonized national and European standards three years ago, but was forced to wait for this law. The document also introduces new rules in the field of public market supervision, which will significantly complicate the falsification of cement products.
In addition, the head of the association pins hopes on the investigation of the import of Portland cement and clinker cement from Turkey to Ukraine, launched early September by the Interdepartmental Commission on International Trade. According to him, this import increased 9-fold in 2019 and 13-fold in January-August 2020 versus January-August 2019, and by the end of the year it may exceed 1 million tonnes.
The head of Ukrcement explained such an increase in imports by a sharp reduction in Turkey’s domestic market, a strong weakening of the lira against the backdrop of a strong hryvnia and simple maritime logistics, and added that the Turkish cement industry is ten times larger than the Ukrainian one.
“The market in Ukraine is not growing, it has been fluctuating between 9.2-9.5 million tonnes for the third year in a row, so this deformation means worsening conditions for Ukrainian producers, and these are four large industrial groups, two of which are international,” Skilsky said.
He said that Ukrainian producers will be able to easily replace this volume of imports, and the replacement of Portland cement and clinker imported from Russia, Belarus and Moldova after the introduction of anti-dumping duties on the import of Portland cement and clinker from these countries last year is evidence of this.
“The cement industry can increase production further, the capacity reserve is sufficient for at least 20% growth. The question is whether there is a market for such growth,” the head of Ukrcement said.
He said that at the beginning of 2020 there was hope for a 20% growth that the construction market showed in 2019. However, the pandemic has made negative adjustments, and in the first seven months of this year, the decline in construction was already 4.6%, including in the housing construction sector – by 22%, and there is only a slight increase in infrastructure construction, Skilsky said.
According to the State Statistics Service, the production of Portland cement in January-July 2020 in Ukraine increased 3.7%, to 5.04 million tonnes, and clinker grew by 1.5%, to 3.9 million tonnes, including in July 2020 compared with July 2019, the growth was 5.9% and 12.2%, respectively.
