Norwegian-based Scatec Solar and partners have closed financing for the 30 MW Kamianka project in Cherkasy region in central Ukraine with a total investment of EUR 35 million, the company’s press service said. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and FMO, the Dutch development bank have signed credit agreements for the non-recourse debt financing of the project. The credit facilities amount to EUR 24.5 million and cover 70% of the total project costs.
Scatec Solar says it is in the process of securing additional equity partners for the project.
Scatec Solar will be the lead equity investor in the project; it will also be the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) provider and provide Operation & Maintenance as well as Asset Management services to the power plant. Construction is starting early 2019 with commercial operation in the fourth quarter 2019.
The company says the project will be implemented under the country’s 10-year feed-in-tariff scheme and is expected to produce about 39 GWh per year. Public land will be leased for an extended time period and the solar power plant is expected to deliver power also beyond the feed-in-tariff period.
Scatec Solar is an integrated independent solar power producer, delivering rapidly deployable and sustainable clean energy worldwide. Scatec Solar develops, builds, owns, operates and maintains solar power plants and has an installation track record of more than 1 GW. The company has a total of 1.5 GW in operation and under construction in Argentina, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Honduras, Jordan, Malaysia, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, and Ukraine.
As reported, Ukraine’s parliament on November 20, 2018, passed draft law No. 8449-d in the first reading to introduce “green” auctions from 2020. The legislative initiative envisages, among other things, a reduction in the feed-in tariff for solar power plants by 25% in 2020, to be followed by a 2.5% decrease each year.
More than 60% of Ukrainians are not satisfied with how democracy has developed in Ukraine and more than 54% think they would be unable to resist a government decision limiting their lawful rights and interests, a poll conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine with the support of the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation has shown. According to the results of the opinion poll announced at a press conference in Kyiv on December 21, 26,3% of those polled are not happy at all with how democracy has developed in Ukraine, 35,1% are rather not happy, 16.1% are rather happy, 1.4% are entirely happy, and 21.1% were unable to answer.
When asked about their feelings about the future of Ukraine, 20,1% of the people said that feel optimistic, 18.2% said they felt desperate, 23.4% said they felt confused, 14.1% said they felt pessimistic, 43.3% said they felt hopeful, 37.6% said they felt anxious, 15.2% said they felt interested, 21.1% said they felt scared, 11.5% said they felt confident, 3.7% said they felt nonchalant, 5.1% said they felt happy, and 4.2% said they felt joyful.
Also, 47.9% of those polled said the chances for mass rallies in their towns against declining living standards and for the protection of their rights are unlikely, and 29.1% said such chances are rather high.
In addition, 54.1% of the respondents said if the government of Ukraine made a decision that would limit their lawful rights and interests, they would not be able to do anything with it, 15.4% said they would be able to undertake something, and 30.5% could not provide an answer.
The poll was conducted from September 13 to 29, 2018 in all the regions of Ukraine for the exception of Crimea and the occupied territories in Donbas. A total of 1,800 people were polled.
The ongoing strengthening of the hryvnia is a consequence of the high value of the national currency due to a tight monetary and weighted fiscal policy, as well as growing earnings from exports, Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Oleh Churiy has said.
“There are several factors that are conducive to the stronger hryvnia: these are, first of all, a tight monetary policy, a balanced fiscal policy, and the third important factor is that this year Ukraine has gathered a harvest that was a record over the years of independence. All this means export earnings which have reinforced what is happening today,” he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Saturday.
As reported, the hryvnia forex rate has been strengthening since the end of October. After the introduction of martial law on November 26 until December 26, the national currency dropped sharply to UAH 28.315 per U.S. dollar. However, after a couple of days, the hryvnia resumed its positive momentum, which has accelerated sharply since December 17. The hryvnia forex rate on the interbank forex market on Friday strengthened to UAH 27.385 per U.S. dollar from UAH 27.515 at the end of the previous working day. Quotes of the hryvnia at the end of trading stood at UAH 27.37-27.40 per U.S. dollar.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) under the Ukraine Public Transport Framework project to improve public transport infrastructure signed four loan agreements worth EUR 38 million in total with trolleybus utilities of Mariupol, Kryvy Rih, Kharkiv, and Zhytomyr in January-November 2018 against municipal guarantees.
In particular, it signed a EUR 13 million agreement with municipally owned Mariupol Tram and Trolleybus Administration in July, while agreements worth at EUR 8 million each was signed in September with municipally owned Urban Trolleybus (Kryvy Rih) and municipally owned Trolleybus Depot No. 2 (Kharkiv). Late in November, the EBRD signed an agreement with municipally owned Zhytomyr Tram and Trolleybus Administration to the tune of EUR 9 million.
Under the project, the loans are additionally backed by EBRD loans from the Clean Technology Fund (CTF) and grants from the Eastern Europe Energy Efficiency and Environment Partnership (E5P).
According to the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, in the case of Kryvy Rih, the city provided a guarantee for EUR 10 million, as the bank gives its municipal enterprise an additional EUR 2 million loan from the Clean Technology Fund. CTF loans for Mariupol and Kharkiv also accounted to EUR 2 million.
The loans are issued for 12 years with repayment in equal parts every six months after a two-year grace period.
Kryvy Rih’s interest rate on principal debt is set at 5.75% and is pegged to the rate of 6-month Euribor rate with the possibility of lowering. It depends on the city’s rating and the borrower’s compliance with the required financial ratios. At the same time, the rate for a CTF loan is only 0.75%.
The arrival of the first disbursement under a new Stand-By Arrangement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and related financing can increase the country’s international reserves to more than $20.4 billion by the end of this year, Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Oleh Churiy has said.
“Our reserves can grow to more than it was on January 31, 2013, and they will exceed $20.4 billion,” he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Saturday.
Churiy specified that this forecast was made taking into account the expected arrival of about $400 million in external financing, which the government will raise under guarantees provided by the World Bank.
The NBU official recalled that Ukraine had received $1.4 billion in the first SBA disbursement in the past week, and EUR 500 million in the first tranche of the EU’s Macro-Financial Assistance was provided earlier this month.
As reported, after the receipt of the first SBA disbursement, the National Bank on December 21 reported the growth of the international reserves to $20.1 billion, which was a five-year maximum: the previous time such a level of the international reserves was recorded in January 2014.
The National Bank of Ukraine in early November lowered the forecast of the country’s international reserves for the end of 2018 to $19.2 billion from $20.7 billion, for 2019 to $18.6 billion from $18.8 billion and for 2020 to $19.1 billion from $19. 7 billion.
The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) has allowed Dragon Capital Investments Limited, a member of the group of companies (GC) Dragon Capital, to acquire an office building belonging to Kyiv-based Fortuna Bank, which is undergoing the liquidation procedure.
“Dragon Capital Investments Limited was permitted indirectly, through LLC Investcapital (Kyiv), to acquire assets, i.e. Kyiv-based non-residential premises owned by JSC Fortuna Bank,” the AMCU said.
As reported, in November 2018, Dragon Capital CEO Tomas Fiala said at a meeting of the European Business Association (EBA) that his company had bought “one facility for UAH 170 million” from the Deposit Guarantee Fund. According to the ProZorro.Sale platform, it was a Fortuna Bank office building at 35 Borychiv Tik Street in Kyiv’s Podilsky district. The lot included a non-residential building with an area of almost 4,000 square meters and a 0.085 ha plot of land.
JSC Fortuna Bank was designated as insolvent in January 2017.
ANTI-TRUST, DRAGON CAPITAL'S, FORTUNA BANK'S, OFFICE BUILDING
