The OKKO Group plans to open a new 60,000-tonne elevator by autumn 2025 and a bioethanol plant in summer 2026, OKKO Group CEO Vasyl Danylyak said in an interview with Tomas Fiala, co-founder of investment company Dragon Capital.
According to him, the company began construction of an 83,000-ton bioethanol plant last year. Only part of its production will be supplied to the domestic market, with the rest intended for export.
“In Ukraine, since May 1 of this year, there have been mandates to add 5% bioethanol to fuel in accordance with European standards, but this share may increase to 10%. Accordingly, after analyzing our market share, we decided to build a plant with a capacity of 83,000 tons. In addition, we worked with American consultants, who are number one in the market, on the format of the plant’s operation. Thanks to this, we chose the best option: it will work partly for our group and partly for export,” said Danylyak.
The CEO emphasized that by the fall of this year, the group of companies plans to complete the construction of a 60,000-ton storage elevator, and in June-July next year, it expects to fully launch the plant.
Danylyak also said that this year OKKO Group closed a deal to buy 17,000 hectares of land in the north of the Ternopil region and the south of the Rivne region, increasing its land bank to 50,000 hectares.
“As of today, we have a total of about 50,000 hectares under cultivation,” the top manager said.
He explained the interest in these regions by the favorable natural and climatic conditions and the best yield indicators compared to other regions.
Danylyak noted that an important component of OKKO’s agricultural portfolio is its partnership with the Gadz-Agro enterprise in the Ternopil region, in which the company acquired a stake in 2023. The enterprise cultivates 26,000 hectares of land and has about 10,000 head of cattle, of which 5,000 are dairy cows. It is also one of the largest horticultural farms in Ukraine, but OKKO decided not to integrate the horticultural part of the business.
OKKO Group unites more than 10 diverse businesses in the fields of manufacturing, trade, construction, insurance, services, and other services. The group’s flagship company is Galnaftogaz, which operates one of the largest petrol station chains in Ukraine under the OKKO brand, with around 400 petrol stations.
The founder and ultimate beneficiary of the group is Vitaliy Antonov.
“Transportlux Ukraine” invested about UAH 40 million in the construction of a bioethanol production plant in Raigorodka community (Zhytomyr region), said the head of Zhytomyr regional military organization Vitaliy Bunechko.
“The peculiarity of the production is that it responds to several challenges at once. This is the production of bioethanol, which from May this year should make up at least 5% of automobile fuel in Ukraine. So its own capacity for its production will allow not to spend extra money on exports, but to support domestic producers and the economy,” he wrote in Telegram.
Bunechko specified that the main raw material for the plant is food industry waste: animal fat, in particular from chicken farms, waste from vegetable oil production and others. Accordingly, another important problem is being solved – waste recycling.
“The plant is being built using advanced technologies and will help reduce dependence on traditional energy resources, create new jobs and contribute to the development of the region’s economy,” emphasized the head of Zhytomyr OVA.
According to regional media, the plant produced the first liter of biodiesel on Friday. They referred to the words of the investor, Moldovan citizen Mihail Popu, who expressed hope that biodiesel production will be part of the long-term strategy of energy independence of the region and will improve the social component of the community, where new jobs will be created and farmers will be able to sell oilseeds at more favorable conditions.
The investor added that the company intends to increase production in order to meet the demand for fuel not only in the community, but also to establish exports.
