Additional expenses of the largest Ukrainian mobile operator Kyivstar on ensuring its energy independence amid the problems with external energy supply exceeded UAH 350 mln and the company has replaced more than 20 thousand batteries at base stations to extend their autonomous operation up to four to six hours.
Alexander Komarov, the President of the Company, informed at Business Wisdom Summit held this week that the batteries have been already replaced at 2 ths sites (base stations and other facilities) out of 14 ths and by May-June it will be up to 5 ths but the company goes to the Board of Directors with the proposal to expand this program by 4 ths more.
Earlier the president of the company noted that consumption of one base station is 6-7 kWh. New modern lithium-phosphate batteries allow not only to keep voltage longer but also to recharge faster.
He added that Kyivstar also installed 1,790 generators, of which 700 were provided by businesses on crowdfunding terms. Their total capacity reached 40 MW.
Komarov specified that since November the company uses on average about 10 thousand liters of fuel per day, and the total consumption has already made about 1 million liters.
According to him, to cope with the problems of outages also helps national roaming: in the peak day on November 23 Kyivstar took 1 million subscribers of other operators, while 1,3 million subscribers of Kyivstar used networks of competitors. In total, during the operation of national roaming since March 7, 2022 subscribers of other networks spoke in Kyivstar network 1.2 billion minutes.
In addition, the company also invested UAH 50 million in uninterruptible power supplies for “Home Internet” services: more than 10 thousand homes were equipped with uninterruptible power supplies, which guarantees them the availability of the Internet, even in cases of new blackouts.
Komarov specified that the total investment in the development of telcom-services in the past year amounted to 5.9 billion UAH, 659 new base stations were built, which corresponds to the level of 2021.
He reminded that during the war 18% of base stations of the company were completely destroyed, 20% were damaged and more than 1200 km of fiber-optic lines were damaged as well.
According to him, the company now has 24.8 million subscribers, of which 3.3 million are internally displaced. Komarov specified that 2.2 million subscribers went abroad, 1.4 million of them remained the company’s subscribers, including 95 % that use the service “roaming as home”, provided in 27 countries.
The president of “Kyivstar” noted that at the beginning of the war there were 10 million subscribers of the company outside their places of residence.
“The industry and Kyivstar have done very decently: the network indicators are very close to the pre-war period, the energy industry has stabilized, and the network has stabilized,” Komarov summarized.
Oil prices continue to decline after last week’s drop, which was the most significant since last summer.
Negative sentiment in the oil market is due to concerns that the crisis in the U.S. banking sector can provoke a recession in the U.S. economy, reports MarketWatch.
The quotations of May futures for Brent oil on London’s ICE Futures Exchange as of 7:04 a.m. were $72.29 a barrel, which is $0.68 (0.9%) lower than the price at the close of the previous session. Those contracts fell $1.73 (2.3%) to $72.97 a barrel on Friday, the lowest level since December 20.
The price of WTI April futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) fell $0.6 per barrel to $66.14 on Monday morning. The contract value fell by $1.61 (2.4%) to $66.74 a barrel at the end of previous session. This is the minimum since December 3.
Brent crashed by 11.9% in five trading days and WTI by 13%. This is the most significant weekly decline respectively since last August for European oil and since June for U.S. oil.
“Oil prices have been particularly susceptible to negativity amid the current market turmoil,” believes Commerzbank commodity analyst Barbara Lambrecht, referring to problems in the U.S. banking sector. At the same time, she believes “the drop in oil prices is excessive and mostly speculative.
Nova Post Polska will open 10 branches in Poland by the end of March, raising the total number of branches in the country to 30, Nova Post Polska CEO Dmitry Vergun told Interfax-Ukraine.
“By the end of March we plan to open 10 more new ones. In particular, in Olsztyn, Radom, Kielce, Opole, Częstchowa, Bielsko-Biala. The offices in Jelenia Góra and Białystok will open already on March 27. All 16 voivodeships will be covered in June,” said Vergun.
According to him, all branches will accept shipments of up to 100 kilograms.
“According to plans, there will be 50 outlets in Poland by the end of June, and we may reach even more by the end of the year,” the CEO of Nova Post Polska said. Specifically, he said, there will be about 10 branches in Warsaw in the medium term and 15 by the end of the year.
Currently, there are six branches in Warsaw. Since October 3, the company has launched 20 branches (also in Krakow, Gdańsk, Poznań, Łódź, Lublin, Riaśwa and Katowice) and received an official document granting it the official status of postal operator in Poland.
From October 3 to March 1 Nova Post Polska dispatched over 150 thousand packages. The company’s services during this period were used by 132,000 customers, including 8.5 per cent of Polish citizens.
The 28th Ukrainian expedition group left for the Akademik Vernadsky station on March 18, the National Antarctic Science Center reported.
“Even in conditions of large-scale war, we must ensure continuous work of our only Antarctic station, because the results of the activities of Ukrainian scientists on the icy continent are important for the whole world. This is a whole range of the longest in Antarctica meteorological observations, study of climate change, space weather, magnetic field of the Earth and much more. There we are doing a global science of the 21st century and do not stop at all attempts of the enemy to throw us back into the 20th,” – said Director of the National Antarctic Science Center Eugene Wild.
It is noted that in the 28th Ukrainian Antarctic Expedition there are 14 participants: nine scientists, three in each field of research, in particular, biology, meteorology and geophysics.
The scientists were joined by doctor, cook, sysadmin, system mechanic, diesel electrician.
The mission will work at the station for a year.
“The team was led by geophysicist Bogdan Gavrilyuk. He goes to Antarctica for the tenth time – it is the absolute record for the Ukrainian Antarctic expeditions. In his previous – 26th ATE – Bohdan was also a basecommander, and after his return in the spring of 2022, he immediately joined the Ukrainian Frontier Service”, – noted the center.
In addition, for the first time in the last five years, the expedition consists only of men.
“Unfortunately, only five women applied for this competition (last year – 19), but they did not overcome all the stages of the competitive selection,” – reported in the scientific center.
As noted, now the expedition members go to Poland, hence the flights to South America, where in the Chilean port of Punta Arenas future winterers are already waiting for the ship “Noosphere”. The icebreaker is supposed to deliver 28 UAE to the station and return 27 UAE, which has already worked in Antarctica for a year, to “the mainland”.
Swiss pharmaceutical company Acino became a partner of the project “Mobile hospitals for Victory” implemented by Charitable Foundation for Reconstruction and Development of Ukraine.
According to the press release from the Foundation, within the framework of this project Acino shipped to the pilot mobile medical complex 1600 packages of drugs from its own product portfolio for the total amount of UAH 150 thousand.
The “Mobile Hospitals for Victory” project provides for purchasing 52 mobile hospitals. The cost of one such medical complex on wheels is EUR 240 thousand.
Currently 14 organizations in Ukraine and abroad have joined the project.
Mobile hospital is a complete hospital on wheels equipped with modern medical equipment. It consists of an admission room, a laboratory, an X-ray room, an operation room and also technical rooms, toilets and showers. The hospital is equipped with its own generator. Two medical teams can work there at the same time, with the ability to save up to 100 lives a day, based on the “golden hour” principle.
Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the Acino pharmaceutical company has donated more than 67 million UAH for humanitarian purposes, including over 200 thousand packages of medicines to hospitals and hospitals in the country.
The fall in real gross domestic product (GDP) of Ukraine in 2022 is estimated at 30.4% [±2%], which is better than preliminary forecasts, the Economy Ministry said. After falling by about 30% in 2022, the Ukrainian economy may lose from zero to 5% this year if the hot phase of the war continues until the third quarter, but next year its growth will exceed 10%, founder and head of Dragon Capital investment company Tomas Fiala gave such a macro forecast.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) will worsen the forecast estimate of real GDP growth in Ukraine in 2023 from 4% to 1-3.3%, while inflation by the end of the year will slow down growth to 19-21%, bankers polled by Interfax-Ukraine believe.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has downgraded its forecast for the growth of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023 to 0.3% from 4% in the previous forecast, which is largely due to the extension of the base scenario with a full-scale war for another six months – until the beginning of 2024.
The Ministry of Economy confirms the forecast for the growth of the Ukrainian economy in 2023 by 3.2%, despite the worsening of its forecast by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) from 4% to 0.3% this week, First Deputy Minister Denys Kudin has said.
The negative balance of Ukraine’s foreign trade in goods in January-November 2022 grew 2.3-fold compared to the same period in 2021, to $8.524 billion from $3.635 billion, the State Statistics Service reported.
Inflation in Ukraine accelerated to 27.5% in December, but remained below the October forecast of the National Bank (30%), according to the macroeconomic and monetary review published by the NBU.
Consumer price growth in Ukraine in December 2022 remained at the level of November – 0.7% compared to 2.5% in October, 1.9% in September and 1.1% in August, returning to July level, the State Statistics Service of Ukraine reported.
State budget expenditures to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the form of the purchase of military equipment, weapons, ammunition, defense products, and personal protective equipment in December amounted to UAH 38 billion (11.5% of all expenditures) compared to 18.4 UAH billion in November (7%) and UAH 35.9 billion in October (16.1%).
According to the forecast of the Ministry of Economy, the grain harvest in Ukraine in 2023 will be about 49.5 million tonnes, which is better than the estimate of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) at 46 million tonnes, First Deputy Minister Denys Kudin told.
PhD in Economics, Maksim Urakin
