KYIV. Nov 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – China’s CNBM has completed the registration of ownership rights to the 10 largest solar power plants in Ukraine with a total capacity of 267 MW, Director General of China’s CNBM New Energy Engineering Co., Ltd. Yongzhi Chen has said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
Commenting on the recent news about the acquisition of Neptun Solar incorporated into Activ Solar, he said that this was the last deal to register ownership rights to 10 solar power plants received for debts, while ownership rights to the rest of nine plants were registered earlier.
“In general, we have invested around $1 billion of investment and financing, including commodity loans. Over EUR 168 million were converted into capital of 10 solar power plants. The company received control over the said assets in exchange of paying unrecoverable and unsecured debt under transactions to supply equipment,” Chen said.
He said that the Chinese company has been operating on the Ukrainian energy market since 2011. In 2012-2013 a large debt appeared, and the problem was settled only in 2014 when the plants were transferred to ownership as payment of the debt.
Chen said that CNBM received permits from all Chinese and Ukrainian regulators, including Ukraine’s Antimonopoly Committee, and information that the company owns Ukrainian companies is available in open registers.
He said that CNBM is fulfilling all liabilities of the Ukrainian companies to Ukrainian banks, including Oschadbank.
As for the tariff that is considered set too high by many lawmakers and market players, he said that this tariff guaranteed the acceptable payback period with the prices of equipment at the moment of building the plants.
“In 2011-2012 the cash cost of equipment was three times more than now. It is incorrect to assess the cash cost that was five years ago, taking into account the current market price,” Chen said.
Commenting on information that other countries eventually reduced feed-in tariffs, he said that there investors knew about the reduction of tariffs in advance and they could plan their operations.
“On the other hand, the tariffs were not reduced for the finished facilities,” he added.
Chen said that allegations of some politicians that CNBM is linked to Ukrainian oligarchs, in particular, fugitive ex-head of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Andriy Kliuyev, is an attempt to deceive regulators and society and explain the discriminative steps against the company by this.
