KYIV. June 17 (Interfax-Ukraine) – State enterprise Energoatom has announced a tender to open a credit line worth EUR11.574 million to finance the supply of SHEM-M drives and special tools for the sixth power unit at Zaporizhia nuclear power plant (NPP).
According to an announcement in the public procurement bulletin, the deadline for filing applications to participate in the tender and opening bids is July 7, 2015.
Loan funds will be raised for six years from the date of signing a loan agreement. The expected value of the purchase is UAH 102.582 million.
As reported, in October 2014 a contract was signed for the supply of SHEM-M electromagnetic upgraded stepper drives produced by Skoda for power unit No.6 of Zaporizhia NPP. The document follows the successful operation of similar drives at power unit No. 3 at Rivne nuclear power plant and block number 1 at Zaporizhia NPP. SHEM-M drives are also successfully operated at blocks numbers 1, 2, and 3 at Yuzhnoukrainsk nuclear power plant.
Previously, Energoatom repeatedly raised loans from Czech Export Bank to finance the purchase of Skoda equipment for its NPPs.
KYIV. June 16 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Dnipropetrovsk-based state-run Pivdenne design bureau is in talks with European companies on the development of partnerships, and has linked the scale of the presence of Ukrainian rocket and space enterprises on the EU market with Ukraine’s membership of the European Space Agency.
Speaking about potential cooperation with the EU, Director General of Pivdenne design bureau Oleksandr Dehtiariov said that there are limits on the participation of the Ukrainian rocket and space sector in European space projects.
“The participation of the ESA’s non-member states in European space projects is strictly limited by a number of European rules and restrictions,” he said.
As Dehtiariov explained, Pivdenne design bureau has managed to establish cooperation with EU countries mainly in two areas: production and maintenance of upper-stage engine of a new European light-class Vega launch vehicle (LV), as well as joint research projects within EU framework programs. In particular, he said Pivdenne design bureau currently participates in EU research initiatives, including the creation of new types of thermal protection for reusable space vehicles; development of new methods of disposal of debris; exploration of new structural materials based on carbon fiber.
Dehtiariov said the bureau is not satisfied with what has already been achieved: the company is holding talks with private European companies on possible cooperation in new promising directions. Among them is the creation of engines for re-usable space vehicles, the creation of a small platform-carrier for nano satellites, and orbit-to-orbit space service studies, he said.
“The prospects of cooperation with European partners in the creation of the newest complex for production of elements of space vehicles and rockets from carbon-phenolic materials for Ukraine and the development of cooperation in 3D printing area should be pointed separately,” he said.
Among the promising and mutually profitable directions of cooperation between Ukraine and the EU in the rocket and space sector, which Pivdenne design bureau is ready to offer, are the design and production of oxygen-kerosene engines for promising European vehicle carriers, production of their elements in Ukraine at competitive prices and the designing of platforms of small spacecraft for scientific, technological and Earth remote sensing missions, Dehtiariov said.
“However, the participation of Ukraine in European space projects mainly depends on Ukraine’s joining the European Space Agency,” he said.
KYIV. June 16 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Energy and Coal Industry Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Demchyshyn has said that an international consortium to manage National Nuclear Generating Company Energoatom, the operator of Ukrainian nuclear power plants, could be created.
“Even Energoatom requires private investment, although control over nuclear security issues with a lot of many specific requirements should be retained during the management. Some shares could be sold to have a new and more effective owner who will help managing the asset. In the medium term outlook an international consortium to manage Energoatom with European and/or U.S. investors could be created,” he said in an interview with Forbes Ukraine.
He said that foreign investors are interested in Ukrainian energy, including electricity generation.
“There is a chance of realizing unique projects in the hydro-power sector… However, this is the prospect of not the coming year. The political situation in the country should stabilize,” he said.
Energoatom is the operator of all four Ukrainian-based operating nuclear power plants, which have 15 VVER reactors with an overall generating capacity of 13.835 gigawatts.
KYIV. June 16 (Interfax-Ukraine) – National energy company Ukrenergo plans capital investment of UAH 5 billion for 2015, acting head of Ukrenergo Yuriy Kasich has said.
“Capital investment for this year will total UAH 5 billion [value added tax not included], including UAH 3.7 billion of borrowed funds. The borrowed funds will be sent to build the 750 kV Zaporizhia NPP-Kakhovska substation power line, the 750 kV Kakhovska substation and the 330 kV diversions of the existing circuit. This is UAH 2.2 billion. Another UAH 1.5 billion will be sent to build the 750 kV Rivne NPP-Kyivska substation power line with the expansion of the 750 kV Kyivska substation and two 750 kV and 330 kV diversions of the existing circuit,” he said.
He said that the company’s financial plan for 2015 approved by the Cabinet of Ministers on May 20, 2015 foresees net profit of UAH 35 million. Revenues are planned at UAH 4.245 billion and expenses – at UAH 4.21 billion.
“The sum of expenses mainly depends on the non-operation exchange rate difference, which was calculated using the expected change of the U.S. dollar and euro exchange rate to the hryvnia during the year,” Kasich said.
The company plans to send UAH 109 million in taxes and other mandatory payments to the national and local budgets.
He said that Ukrenergo saw UAH 1.2 billion of net loss with the planned net profit of UAH 1.5 million. Losses attributable to the hryvnia devaluation totaled around UAH 2 billion.
Ukrenergo operates Ukraine’s backbone and interstate transmission lines, as well as supervising the country’s national grid. It is a state-owned company and is controlled by the Ukrainian Energy and Coal Industry Ministry.
KYIV. June 16 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Infrastructure Ministry of Ukraine is to sign a memorandum of intent with a global grain market player, France’s Soufflet Group, on June 19 to invest in the development of Ukrainian port infrastructure.
The ministry’s press service reported that representatives of Soufflet Group expressed their readiness to invest in the development of Illichivsk maritime merchandise port (Odesa region) and by signing the memo the investor would prove its plans to realize an investment project for port in the coming years. The details have not yet been disclosed.
Illichivsk maritime merchant port is a universal international port, one of the biggest on the Black Sea. Its annual handling capacity is upwards of 30 million tonnes of cargo. It has specialized terminals and complexes that handle a wide range of cargo – liquid, bulk, and general. The port’s 29 berths allow ships with a tonnage of up to 100,000 tonnes to be handled. The port’s annual projected capacity exceeds 30 million tonnes.
Soufflet Group is one of the largest malt producers in the world.
Industrialists and entrepreneurs support effective privatization, bearing in mind that its main goal is not the complete sale of all available facilities to fill the budget, but the correct and substantiated transfer of state-owned property to private hands to attract investment for modernization, to boost the competitiveness of the national product, and accumulate funds for structural reforms. These were the subjects highlighted by President of the Ukrainian League of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (ULIE) Anatoliy Kinakh at a roundtable talk entitled “Privatization of State Enterprises: What the Budget and Economy of Ukraine Will Get.”
“First of all, the process has to begin to draw up and endorse a state property privatization program. There should be no hurry in the privatization process. After all, these are in fact the least recent assets that the state has got for sale in general. And a risk is high here to quickly slip into raw economy and become the supplier of cheap labor to developed countries,” he said.
The state program on whose basis public facilities will be privatized shall include a feasibility study for each enterprise; a list of strategic enterprises that are not subject to privatization (defense, transport, energy and food security). The program should also provide thorough pre-privatization preparations to increase the value of state-owned assets. If this hasn’t been done, it’s not worth conducting large-scale privatization.
ULIE experts believe that there is an alternative to the privatization of state property, namely strategically important companies – this is to make management of such assets by the state more efficient. The statements that the state cannot be an effective owner are not true. Today, many leading countries demonstrate examples when the state acts as an effective owner, in some cases, with state stakes of between 20% and 40%.
“We are confident that inefficient enterprises, which are not of strategic importance and are not bound by state-related and social liabilities, rather than strategic ones should be sold first. An effective owner should come there, invest funds and make the enterprise succeed. However, strategic companies that are connected with national security have to remain in state ownership,” Kinakh said.
Participants in the roundtable talk at the ULIE stressed that one should not forget about the main strategic goal of privatization – the formation of the effective structure of the Ukrainian economy itself. We should focus on the development of high-tech and technically sophisticated production, identify it as a priority sector for state legislative and financial support; concentrate on raising investment in that area. We cannot accept the tendencies of becoming a third world nation with a resource-based economy and cheap labor.
Transparency, open process and the ability of the public to control how officials manage state property must become an integral part of the privatization, as this is the most effective barrier against corruption and possible abuse and provides the ability of mending previous mistakes in the privatization process, the ULIE said.
