Business news from Ukraine

KERNEL SEEKS TO FINISH BUILDING GRAIN TERMINAL AT CHORNOMORSK PORT BY LATE 2018

KYIV. Dec 7 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Transgrainterminal LLC, part of Kernel Group, seeks to finish building a grain terminal at the Chornomorsk maritime merchandise port by late 2018.

The press service of the port’s administration reported on Tuesday that the company signed a long-term agreement to lease rearward areas of berths 14 and 15 and upper rearward areas of the Chornomorsk port state-run enterprise. The total area where the facilities will be built is 53,000 square meters. Ships will be loaded at berths 14 and 15.

The grain terminal projects includes a on-the-floor grain storage warehouse with a capacity of 140,000 tonnes with two underground and one upper galleries, the grain receiving line for railway transport, a complex of galleries, tracks and weighs, metal silos for storing grain with a capacity of 170,000 tonnes.

Today the key port asset of Kernel is Transbulkterminal grain terminal. Its annual capacity is 4 million tonnes. The terminal has silos with a storage capacity of around 190,000 tonnes of grain.

PFEIFER & LANGEN BUYS SIX T-TSUKOR SUGAR FACTORIES

KYIV. Dec 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Pfeifer & Langen (Germany) is completing the acquisition of six sugar factories in Ternopil region previously owned by T-Tsukor holding.

“Yes, we buy these six plants,” Radekhiv Sugar LLC Head Vitaliy Sikorsky told Interfax-Ukraine.

According to him, after the bankruptcy of Mriya agricultural holding, the owner of which together with T-Tsukor was the Huta family, the property of sugar mills was pledged as security for loans at Prominvestbank and passed into the ownership of the bank.

“In the crisis period for the industry enterprises, the bank found the best solution to support the business – the production facilities of the sugar factories will move to the core investor,” he added.

T-Tsukor included Borschiv, Buchach, Zbarazh, Kozova, Lanivtsi and Khoroskov sugar factories (Ternopil region), as well as Horodenka sugar refinery (Ivano-Frankivsk region).

Pfeifer & Langen is a large European producer of sugar. The company, in particular, owns sugar factories in Germany, Poland, Romania, Italy, Hungary, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

 

OLIVER WYMAN TO DESIGN CONCEPT TO DEVELOP DEPOSITORY, CLEARING INFRASTRUCTURE IN UKRAINE

KYIV. Dec 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has attracted international consulting company Oliver Wyman as an advisor to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) and the National Commission for Securities and the Stock Market in designing a concept to develop the depository and clearing infrastructure in the country, a well-informed source has told Interfax-Ukraine.

The source did not disclose the details of the mandate of the consulting company.

Early December Head of the National Depository of Ukraine (NDU) Mindaugas Bakas said at a roundtable that Oliver Wyman started working on November 30.

Earlier the NBU and the securities commission proposed to reform the clearing infrastructure to ensure the signing of deals with securities, gradually refusing the services of the clearing center to service contracts on the financial markets.

The proposal was presented to the market players early September.

WINNER IMPORTS UKRAINE TO UPGRADE DEALER NETWORK BY 2020

KYIV. Dec 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Winner Imports Ukraine, the official importer of Ford, Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover and Porsche cars in Ukraine, intends to reformat the dealer network during several years, including the opening of new car centers.

Company Director for Dealer Network Development Dmytro Buhoslavsky told Interfax-Ukraine now the company has 51 dealers in Ukraine, including five Jaguar dealers, five Land Rover, nine Volvo, five Porsche and 27 Ford dealers.

“Now it is difficult to say whether the dealer network will be changed quantitatively, but if yes – then slightly. Today our plan is to qualitatively change the presence of the brands in Ukraine. Therefore we will work with the existing partners to open new dealer centers and if the partners are not ready for investment we will consider new ones,” Buhoslavsky said.

According to him, now within the strategy the company has fully implemented the plan for the development of Porsche dealer centers.

“Today we have five concept Porsche dealer centers, the last one opened in Lviv in September, therefore the plan as for this brand until 2020 has been fulfilled,” he said.

UKRENERGO HEAD DISCUSSES UKRAINIAN POWER GRID’S INTEGRATION WITH ENTSO-E WITH EC VICE PRESIDENT

KYIV. Dec 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Head of Ukrenergo Vsevolod Kovalchuk and European Commission Vice President for Energy Union Maros Sefcovic have discussed integration of Ukraine’s power grid with the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) in the realistic terms.

The press service of Ukrenergo reported that the sides arranged that consultations with representatives of the European Commission will be held in the near term at the expert level to accelerate the integration.

The meeting was held as part of the tenth SET Plan – Central European Energy Conference held in Bratislava on December 2, which the Ukrenergo’s delegation took part in.

Kovalchuk in his speech at the panel entitled “Market integration III: Regional market-coupling in electricity” told about the state of the Ukrainian power market reform, further possible ways of its integration with markets of the neighbor countries (Moldova, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania) and next steps in Ukrainian power grid’s integration with ENTSO-E.

He said that the integration even with several markets of neighbor countries would help Ukraine to better prepare for the complete integration with ENTSO-E.

“This could be done gradually, step by step, and start now. The will of Ukraine is needed. We have it. The interest of our partners is needed as well… One should not wait for a comprehensive technical and political decision on the full integration – the steps should be made now,” he said.

The press service said that at the panel where heads of Austrian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian and Slovakian systemic operators took part, it was clearly said that Ukrenergo is ready to start consultations with partners to determine top priority steps to integrate the markets and bring cooperation to the strategic level. One of the steps will be the launch of electronic annual/monthly/daily unilateral auctions between Burshtyn Energy Island and ENTSO-E.

Kovalchuk expressed confidence that the Ukrainian power grid could be useful for European consumers.

BELORUSNEFT STARTS HYDRAULIC FRACTURING OPERATIONS FOR UKRGAZVYDOBUVANNIA

KYIV. Dec 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Belorusneft specialists have started performing hydraulic fracturing operations under the contract with Ukrgazvydobuvannia, reads a statement on the website of the oil company.

“In accordance with the contracts, the specialists will conduct 50 hydraulic fracturing operations in Poltava region. This is the first large-scale oil service project in Ukraine for the Belarusian oil company,” the report says.

As reported, Ukrgazvydobuvannia plans in 2016-2017 to conduct 100 hydraulic fracturing operations with the help of Belorusneft and Tacrom, which won the tenders, on the Shebelynka and Poltava gas deposits at a depth of 2,800-5,000 meters.

Ukrgazvydobuvannia plans to increase natural gas production from 14.5 billion cubic meters in 2015 and 2016 to 15.2 billion cubic meters in 2017, 16.5 billion cubic meters in 2018, 18.3 billion cubic meters in 2019, and 20.1 billion cubic meters in 2020.