Gross gas production in Ukraine in January-June 2024 amounted to 9.4 billion cubic meters and by the end of the year can grow twice – by 100-200 million cubic meters more than last year’s figure (18.7 billion cubic meters), said Artem Petrenko, executive director of the Association of Gas Producers.
“According to our conservative forecasts for today, Ukraine in 2024 will be able to increase its own production by 100-200 million cubic meters compared to last year’s figure. We are oriented at 18.8 billion cubic meters per year. But this is such a conservative base scenario, which takes into account neither possible positive nor negative aspects,” he said in comments to Energoreforma on the sidelines of the Ukrainian Gas Open 2024 Energy Club, held on Thursday in Kiev.
According to Petrenko’s presentation at the forum, drilling of about 70 wells (150 wells for the whole of 2023) has been started in half a year.
He named the state-owned Ukrgasvydobuvannya as the flagship in this process, noting that private companies are also actively involved in drilling and working to increase production.
“In particular, Smart Energy is now resuming hydrocarbon production at three sites in Kharkiv and Poltava regions. Therefore, I hope that by the end of the year they will add to the total gas production,” said the executive director of the association.
At the same time, he noted that the daily production of private companies fell by 18% compared to last year.
A dry port is being built in the Vinnytsia community to help connect the central regions of the country with the ports of Odesa and the EU countries through the Mostyska container terminal, with an investment of $15 million, Vinnytsia Deputy Mayor Andriy Ocheretnyi wrote on Facebook.
“This will be a railroad terminal that will improve the prompt transportation and handling of cargo, as well as the export and import potential of our country. It will help to connect the central regions of the country with the ports of the big city of Odesa and, through the Mostyska container terminal, with the EU countries,” Ocheretnyi emphasized.
According to him, the first phase of construction began in the spring of 2024. At the first stage of the dry port construction, the railway infrastructure and the first container yard with a capacity of about 30 thousand TEU/year will be built. Meanwhile, 2000 TEU is the capacity of the container warehouse, which will also be built at this stage.
Currently, part of the railway tracks, a weighing system, and a 3.5 thousand square meter warehouse are ready.
“The Dry Port is scheduled to be commissioned in the third quarter of this year. It will employ about 50 people and is currently looking for machine operators. A total of 100 jobs are planned to be created, summarized the deputy mayor of Vinnytsia.
In January-July 2024, Ukrainian ports increased their transshipment volume by 1.7 times compared to the same period in 2023 – up to 59.9 million tons, according to the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority (USPA).
“According to the operational data of USPA for January-July 2024, the ports of Ukraine handled 59.9 million tons of cargo, compared to 34.4 million tons in 2023,” the USPA said on its Facebook page on Monday.
In July, 7 million tons were handled, the same as in June. This figure exceeds the volume handled by ports in July 2023 by 2.2 times.
More than half (4.2 mln tons) was accounted for by agricultural products exported to 46 countries.
Earlier it was reported that amid an increase in transshipment volumes in the Black Sea ports and a decrease in the Danube ports in January-June 2024, Ukrainian ports increased transshipment volumes by 1.6 times compared to the same period in 2023, to 53 million tons.
IMC Agro Holding has completed harvesting winter wheat from 20.2 thousand hectares and harvested 139.8 thousand tons with an average yield of 6.9 t/ha, which is the second best result in the history of the company and 60% higher than the average wheat yield in Ukraine, the company’s press service reported on its Facebook page.
According to the report, the agricultural holding is satisfied with the results, as most of the harvested winter crops meet the quality parameters of milling wheat.
“Last fall’s weather conditions were favorable for timely sowing, good germination and tillering of winter wheat. This spring, we carried out fertilization and plant protection against weeds, diseases and pests in accordance with the technological map. All operations were completed on time according to the crop development stages and weather conditions,” said IMC Production Director Mykola Pylypenko.
He noted that the agroholding started wheat harvesting earlier than usual due to the lack of precipitation needed for optimal plant development in the Poltava cluster. This led to a slight decrease in yields and an early start of the harvest in Poltava region.
“In other regions of the company, Chernihiv and Sumy, weather conditions were more favorable, and we significantly exceeded our targets for yield and gross production of winter wheat,” summarized Pylypenko.
“IMC is an integrated group of companies operating in Sumy, Poltava and Chernihiv regions (north and center of Ukraine) in the crop production, elevators and warehouses segments. The land bank is about 120 thousand hectares, storage capacity is 554 thousand tons, with a 2023 harvest of 1.002 million tons.
In 2023, IMC posted a net loss of $21.03 million compared to $1.12 million a year earlier, and its EBITDA decreased 11.3 times to $3.22 million. The holding’s revenue increased by 22.3% to $139.45 million, while the share of exports decreased to 68% from 73% a year earlier.
In January-June this year, FUIB (Kyiv) received UAH 3.82 billion in net profit, which is 4% higher than in the same period of 2023 (UAH 3.68 billion), according to the bank’s quarterly report.
According to the report, the financial institution’s net profit for the second quarter of 2024 decreased by 20.8% compared to the comparable period of 2023 (UAH 2.13 billion) to UAH 1.69 billion.
According to the document, the bank’s net interest income for the first half of the year increased by 31.7% to UAH 7.12 billion, while net commission income increased by 15.1% to UAH 1.23 billion. In particular, these figures improved by 23.6% to UAH 3.56 billion and 43.2% to UAH 0.71 billion in April-June, respectively.
Since the beginning of 2024, the bank’s assets have increased by 6.3%, or by UAH 9.67 billion, and reached UAH 163 billion as of June 30, compared to UAH 125.7 billion at the end of the first half of 2023. This increase was primarily due to the growth of loans and advances to customers from UAH 52.06 billion to UAH 57 billion, in particular, by UAH 3.19 billion in the second quarter of 2024.
Since the beginning of the year, FUIB has increased cash on hand and in transit, as well as funds on the current account with the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) by 29.6% and 41.2%, respectively, to UAH 3.74 billion and UAH 14.11 billion.
Funds under the item “other financial assets” increased 1.6 times to UAH 4.19 billion in the structure of total assets, which, in turn, was facilitated by more active purchases of foreign currency and an increase in bank card payments.
The volume of loans and advances to banks increased by 15.5% to UAH 4.87 billion, while investments in securities increased by 1.7% to UAH 59.16 billion.
Between January and June, the financial institution managed to increase its customer accounts from UAH 126.54 billion to UAH 132.93 billion, while the funds of banks increased from UAH 2.72 billion to UAH 3.33 billion.
In general, FUIB’s liabilities for this period increased from UAH 135.94 billion to UAH 141.22 billion.
It is noted that the bank’s capital increased by 25.3% over the six months of this year and reached UAH 21.78 billion, in particular, in the second quarter – by 11.3%, or UAH 2.22 billion. It is noted that retained earnings increased by 46.5% to UAH 11.41 billion during this time.
The remuneration of 10 members of the bank’s management board in terms of salary for the first half of 2024 increased by 12.1% compared to the same period of the previous year and amounted to UAH 75.6 million, while the remuneration of eight members of the supervisory board increased by 46.7% to UAH 16.6 million.
JSC First Ukrainian International Bank was founded on November 20, 1991 and started its operations in April 1992. As of March 31, 2024, the bank’s shareholders were SCM Finance (92.3%) and SCM Holdings Limited (7.7%, Cyprus) of Rinat Akhmetov.
According to the National Bank of Ukraine, as of June 1, 2024, FUIB ranked 6th (UAH 169.9 billion) among 63 banks in the country in terms of assets. The financial institution’s net profit for 2023 amounted to UAH 3.96 billion.
The amount of remuneration to members of the Supervisory Board and Management Board of state-owned PrivatBank (Kyiv) in January-June this year increased by 26.4%, or UAH 24 million, compared to the same period last year, to UAH 115 million, according to the bank’s quarterly report.
According to the report, remuneration to members of the supervisory board and management board of the financial institution included salaries, pension fund contributions, and other short-term payments.
As reported, three state-owned banks, which are among the top five in terms of assets in the country, significantly reduced remuneration for the performance of job functions to members of the supervisory board last year, in particular: PrivatBank – by 38.8%, Oschadbank – by 32%, and Ukreximbank – by 45.8%.
Last year, PrivatBank paid UAH 51.6 million to six independent members of the Supervisory Board and three state representatives, while in 2022 it paid UAH 84.3 million. As for the remuneration of board members, Privat increased it by 1.9% to UAH 78.9 million in 2023.
According to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), as of June 1, 2024, PrivatBank was the leader in total assets (UAH 872.40 billion) among 63 banks operating in Ukraine. Net profit for the previous year amounted to UAH 37.76 billion.
