Kness Group, a large EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contractor in Ukraine, plans to build around 500 MW of capacities of solar power plants in 2019 for various investors, boosting the volume of projects implemented by the company to 1 GW, Kness Group co-founder Yevhen Didichenko said on Thursday during the discussion devoted to the renewable energy in details organized by Golaw law firm.
Didichenko spoke in favor of adopting a law on green auctions, adding that investors will be interested in bidding and receive guaranteed government support for 20 years. According to him, the cost of building solar power plants in the world is decreasing at a higher than expected rate, so the current tariff for the sale of electricity generated by solar power plants is somewhat overestimated.
At the same time, the Kness Group is concerned about the uncertainty of the mechanism for the distribution of quotas of renewable energy. According to Didichenko, the quotas should be set in proportion to bids from different types of generation. Auctions should be held for the two main types of “green” generation – solar and wind – separately.
“Projects in wind power can be very large. As a result, they may either not have enough quotas, or the project will remain completely unfulfilled,” Didichenko said. In his opinion, the volume of quotas should correlate with the volumes of balancing capacities, but today this issue in Ukraine is not raised yet.
The DCH Group, uniting assets of Ukrainian businessman Oleksandr Yaroslavsky, under a strategy of increasing effectiveness of the mining and metal business has created DCH Steel, which will manage the respective assets: Dniprovsky Metallurgical Combine (DMZ, Dnipro) and Sukha Balka ore mining enterprise (Kryvy Rih).
According to the information on the official website of DCH, the essence of the transformation is to optimally build a management system for mining and metal enterprises at the stage of implementing large-scale investment projects.
According to DCH, Yaroslavsky plans to invest from $150 million to $200 million in his mining and metallurgical business over the next five years. Owning to these investments, in particular, the blast furnace stock of coke-chemical production will be restored at the DMZ and a continuous casting machine will be built, and at Sukha Balka it is planned to organize a processing plant, to develop ore deposit at deeper levels, and to upgrade equipment.
“In the process of gradual vertical integration, the production chain ore mining-enrichment-agglomeration-smelting of iron will be formed,” the group said.
According to the press release, at the level of DCH Steel, general management functions will be centralized, and manufacturing companies will focus their efforts on production and improvement of technology. The expected results of optimizing the management of the mining and metallurgical business of the DCH are to eliminate dependence on external supplies of sinter, to ensure a positive synergy of the activities of the DMZ and the mining enterprise, which should increase competitiveness and sustainability, as well as improve financial performance.
Zelensky, Poroshenko reach second round of presidential race – national exit poll
Showman Volodymyr Zelensky is the leader in the first round of the presidential election in Ukraine with 30.4% supportive votes, incumbent head of state Petro Poroshenko has 17.8% of the votes, leader of Batkivschyna Party Yulia Tymoshenko – 14.2%, according to the National exit poll.
Some 9.8% of voters backed the candidate from the Opposition Platform – For Life Yuri Boiko, 7.1% of voters cast their votes in favor of leader of Hromadianska Pozytsia (Civil Position) Party Anatoliy Hrytsenko, 6.4% – former Security Service Head Ihor Smeshko, 4.8% – leader of Radical Party Oleh Liashko, and 4.0% – candidate from the Opposition Block – the Party of Peace and Development Oleksandr Vilkul.
In the regional context, Zelensky is leading in the south of Ukraine (42.0%), 30.7% of Ukrainians in the east cast their votes in favor of Zelensky, 28.6% in the center and 21.2% in the west of the country.
Poroshenko got the most of votes in the west of Ukraine (26.0%), 19.5% in the center, 11.1% in the south and in 9.6% the east.
Tymoshenko has almost the same support in the west (17.8%) and in the center of Ukraine (17.5%), in the south she was supported by 9.5% of voters, and by 7.3% in the east.
Some 27.2% voted in favor of Boiko in the east of Ukraine, 15.2% in the south, 5.7% in the center, and 1.9% in the west.
Hrytsenko saw the greatest support in the west of the country (12.6%), 7.4% in the center, 3.3% in the south and 2.7% in the east.
The national exit poll was conducted by a consortium of Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation, Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) and the Razumkov Centre.
Anatoliy Hrytsenko, the presidential candidate of Ukraine, the leader of the Civil Position party, has stated that under no circumstances he will support presidential candidate Petro Poroshenko in the second round, and he also cannot agitate to vote for presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelensky.
“I don’t want another five years of falsehood, deceit, looting on blood for the country, and therefore under any circumstances I will not support and vote for Petro Poroshenko. I know him very well. I also cannot say to vote or not to vote for Volodymyr Zelensky,” he said on the air of TV Channel 1+1 on Sunday.
Yanair (Yanair Ltd., Zhytomyr) in the summer navigation of 2018 serviced over 150,000 passengers on regular flights to/from Georgia.
Head of the agent chain operations department at Yanair Svitlana Ilchenko said during the presentation of Georgia’s potential in Kyiv that these were flight from/to Batumi to/from Kyiv and regions.
“In 2018, we transported over 150,000 passengers to Georgia on regular flights in the summer season. This is only Batumi from Kyiv and the regions,” she said.
At the same time, Ilchenko said that in 2019, the airline starts regular flights from Kyiv to Batumi from April 6, and also plans to launch daily flights to Batumi from Odesa and Kharkiv for the summer season.
In addition, the company plans to extend flights to Batumi from Kyiv for the winter navigation of 2019-2020.
“We plan to extend flights from Kyiv to Batumi for winter navigation. We will service this destination [Batumi], especially since the Goderdzi winter resort is developing in Georgia, so Batumi will be in demand not only in the summer season, but also for the winter resort,” she said.
However, commenting on the delays and cancellations of flights in the summer season of 2018, Ilchenko said that the Yanair flight program for the summer season of 2019 was developed, taking into account the available fleet.
“Last year there was a huge program not only of regular flights, but also of charter ones. In 2019, we approached this issue by planning the program in such a way as to eliminate as much as possible any flight failures. Flights planned for the number of aircraft that the airline has, to guarantee flights,” she said.
Currently, according to the airline’s website, for the summer season of 2019, the airline announced daily flights Kyiv-Batumi-Kyiv, two flights a week Kharkiv-Batumi-Kharkiv, Odesa-Batumi-Odesa, Odesa-Tbilisi-Odesa and Kyiv-Tel-Aviv-Kyiv, four flights a week on Odesa-Tel-Aviv-Odesa and Kyiv-Odesa-Kyiv routes, as well as one flight a week on the Odesa-Yerevan-Odesa route.
In turn, director of Travel RSP (Tbilisi) tour operator Nana Chialashvili, noted the growing demand for sanatorium rehabilitation and sightseeing tourism in Georgia.
In addition, according to her, trips to the town of Sighnaghi are in demand, where the newlyweds can get married around the clock under a relaxed procedure.
“In Sighnaghi, you can get married in 15 minutes, while the notary certifies the marriage immediately, so this is a completely legal marriage,” she said.
Yanair Ltd. was registered on June 15, 2012 in Zhytomyr. In July 2013, it received an operation certificate.
The airline’s fleet consists of seven aircraft – five Boeing -737 and two Airbus (A320 and A321).
According to the public register, the ultimate beneficiary of the company is Oleksiy Yanchuk.
The regional branch Prydniprovska Railways of JSC Ukrzaliznytsia has selected Transportation Ukraine LLC to procure spare parts to U.S. General Electric locomotives for the total amount of UAH 3.12 million.
According to a report in the ProZorro e-procurement system, the deal was signed using negotiations due to the absence of competition among suppliers.
The subject of the deal is eight types of spare parts to General Electric TE33AS locomotives in the amount of 864 units. The term of the delivery is before December 31, 2019.
Transportation Ukraine LLC with a charter capital of UAH 28.1 million was registered in July 2018 in Kyiv. The founder is Transportation Systems Holdings Inc. (the United States). Gokhan Bayhan, GE Transportation’s General Manager for Russia/CIS, Europe, Middle East & North Africa, is the head of the company.
As reported, Ukrzaliznytsia has completed the first stage of the strategic cooperation with General Electric on supplies of locomotives.
