Urea production in Ukraine in March 2025 will decrease by 45-50% compared to last year, InfoIndustry reports.
“This is due to the shelling of the gas transportation system, which occurred against the backdrop of high activity in the fertilizer market ahead of the agricultural season,” the analysts explained.
The experts recalled that on the night of March 21, Russians shelled the Sudzha gas distribution system. After that, futures on the Dutch gas hub TTF rose by 2%. The cost of 1 MWh reached EUR43.8 ($500 per 1 thousand cubic meters).
The global price of urea decreased by an average of $20 per tonne over the past week across all sources. At the same time, prices for raw materials, such as ammonia and natural gas, are also declining as the fertilizer procurement season in the EU has started and is at its peak. Gas prices in the EU have stabilized.
In Ukraine, the price of gas dropped by 3.5% to UAH 16,012.35 excluding VAT on March 21. Last week, 17.2 million tons of gas were sold on the exchange.
Ukrainian fertilizer producers reduced their nitrogen fertilizer production capacity in March. According to Infoindustriya, as of March 21, Rivne Azot’s capacity utilization dropped to 45% and Cherkasy Azot’s to 31%, although a month ago both companies were at 65-67%. The industry agency adds that these data are estimates based on gas consumption by the plants and unloading of finished products.
“Imports (to Ukraine – IF-U) will not be able to increase due to the limited volumes available for purchase in April. This will lead to a consistently high price for the product,” analysts predict.
According to their information, urea is currently sold on the free market at a price of 24.6 thousand UAH/ton, FCA ports of Ukraine, and the average price with delivery to the central regions of Ukraine is about 25.8 thousand UAH/ton.
The Spanish economy grew by 0.8% in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to the previous three months, according to the national statistics agency INE, which presented the final data. The figure coincided with the previous estimate and with the growth rate in the third quarter.
Consumer spending in Spain in October-December increased by 1% compared to the previous quarter, government spending increased by 0.3%, and business investment by 2.9%. Exports of goods and services increased by 0.1%, imports by 1.4%.
The industrial sector recorded an increase in production by 0.3%, the construction sector by 2.7%, and the services sector by 1%.
In annual terms, Spain’s GDP grew by 3.4%, while previously it was reported to have risen by 3.5%. At the end of 2024, according to the final data, the Spanish economy grew by 3.2%, this data was confirmed.
Source: http://relocation.com.ua/spains-economy-grew-by-only-08/
Dragon Capital, a Kyiv-based investment company that invested about $700 million in Ukraine between 2015 and 2021, excluding reinvestments of several hundred million more, plans to invest $100 million in 2025 due to improved macroeconomic predictability and economic growth, anInterfax-Ukraine correspondent reports.
“In the middle of last year, we started considering new investments. This year, we plan to make about $100 million in new investments,” owner and CEO Tomas Fiala said at a conference titled ‘Logistics as a Driver of Economic Growth’ organized by the We Build Ukraine think tank in Kyiv on Tuesday.
The businessman added that it will be mainly financed by his own money and co-investors’ equity, while a smaller part, “maybe up to a quarter,” will be borrowed.
He clarified that out of the $700 million of investments in 2015-2021, the share of debt financing was about a third, up to $250 million, of which 80% has already been repaid, but there was also a significant portion of private Western investors, either European or American.
“We really believe that 2025 is the first year during the war when we have much better macroeconomic predictability. We (Ukraine – IF-U) have fully received committees to finance our budget deficit for the whole of 2025 and almost the whole of 2026,” Fiala explained the readiness to resume investments.
He reminded that currently, taking into account the $50 billion financing of Ukraine under the ERA instrument from frozen Russian assets, the total confirmed financing of the country is $56 billion, against the need to finance the budget deficit in 2025 of $40 billion.
“That’s if there is no truce, but if it happens, we will need almost $10 billion less money,” said the owner of Dragon Capital.
He added that, given this situation, a fairly stable exchange rate and economic growth can already be predicted in 2025: by 3% if the war continues, and by 5-7% if it ends.
“We are not the only ones paying attention to the ceasefire negotiations. You can look at the following “barometer” – the prices of Ukrainian Eurobonds traded in London. These are dozens of foreign investors who are assessing Ukraine’s risks. The prices of these bonds have been rising for the last 2 years, but this growth has accelerated since October last year,” Fiala said.
According to him, new investors are assessing the Ukrainian risk through sovereign Eurobonds, focusing on yields of 13-14% per annum – this is the rate at which they are willing to buy the Ukrainian government’s debt.
Fiala added that investors are willing to buy corporate bonds of reliable Ukrainian companies such as MHP and Kernel with a yield of about 10%, and sometimes even 9%.
Dragon Capital is one of the largest investment and financial services groups in Ukraine, providing a full range of investment banking and brokerage services, private equity, and asset management to institutional, corporate, and private clients. The company was founded in 2000 in Kyiv.
Over the next 10 years, Ukrtransgaz plans to invest UAH 31.040 billion in the development of underground gas storage facilities (UGS) in accordance with the gas storage development plan for 2025-2034 approved by the National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission (NEURC).
“The result of the implementation of the Gas Storage Development Plan for 2025-2034 should be to ensure reliable and trouble-free operation of gas storage facilities,” the regulator said in its justification for the relevant resolution adopted at a meeting on Tuesday.
Based on this year’s results, Ukrtransgaz plans to spend UAH 1,091.468 million of its own funds on the development of the UGS facilities. In particular, the company plans to allocate UAH 474.320 million for the operation of gas storage facilities, UAH 266.729 million for the modernization and purchase of vehicles, special machines and mechanisms, UAH 207.506 million for UGS facilities, and UAH 93.679 million for the implementation and development of information technologies.
As reported, in 2023, Ukrtransgaz earned almost UAH 7 billion in net profit, compared to UAH 3.2 billion in 2022.
Ukrtransgaz is a part of Naftogaz Group. It provides for the operation of Ukrainian underground gas storage facilities, as well as modernization and construction of main gas pipelines and facilities on them. It owns 12 underground gas storage facilities located throughout Ukraine with a total capacity of 31 billion cubic meters.
Ukraine’s imports of passenger cars, including cargo-passenger van cars and racing cars (UKT VED code 8703), in January-February 2025 in monetary terms decreased by 7.8% year-on-year to $719.92 million.
According to statistics released by the State Customs Service (SCS) of Ukraine, in February imports of passenger cars to Ukraine exceeded the February-2024 figure by 3% to $385.94 million, while in January there was a 17.8% drop compared to January-2023.
The top three largest suppliers of cars to Ukraine in January-February this year were Germany, the U.S. and Japan, while in the previous year it was the U.S., China and Germany.
In particular, the supply of cars from Germany increased by almost 40% – up to $152.15 million, and their share in the structure of car imports amounted to 21.13% against 13.94% a year earlier.
Cars worth $122.13 million (15% less) were imported from the USA to Ukraine. Japan, which last year was not among the top three countries with the largest car imports, this year imported $79 mln worth of cars in two months.
It is noteworthy that China, whose imports a year ago amounted to $114.88 mln (second place after the USA), has not yet entered the top three.
Overall, imports of passenger cars from other countries totaled $366.63 million during the period compared to $413.87 million in January-February last year.
At the same time, in January-February this year Ukraine exported such vehicles for only $1.9 million, in particular to the UAE (67% of exports), Czech Republic and Moldova, while a year earlier the country sold them to foreign markets for $3.8 million, mainly to Canada (47.7%), USA (26.8%) and Moldova.
According to the STS, in the total structure of imports of goods to Ukraine in January-February the share of passenger cars amounted to 6.37%, in the structure of exports – 0.03%.
As reported, in 2024 in Ukraine imported passenger cars for $4.385 billion – 8% more than a year earlier, exported $10.1 million (2.7 times less).
