Сypriot PVK Energy Investment, part of ICU Group, has acquired Solar Capital LLC (Kherson), whose beneficiary was previously Iryna Barakh, the wife of chief military prosecutor Anatoliy Matios, according to information in the state register. “The acquisition of Solar Capital is another step in the development of our investment business in the field of alternative energy,” Kostiantyn Stetsenko, the managing partner of ICU, told Interfax-Ukraine.
He noted that the first project of the group in this direction is the construction of Kamyanets-Podilsky solar plant.
“Now we are investing in the construction of a solar power plant in Kherson region. This investment is our contribution to the renewal of generating capacities in Ukraine, energy independence by reducing dependence on imported fossil resources and the implementation of the national plan for the share of renewable energy sources,” he said.
Earlier, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine agreed the deal.
According to the state register, Solar Capital was registered on February 15 of this year with a charter capital of UAH 4.5 million. Its head is Yevhen Barakh, who from mid-July also heads MS Social Project, part of ICU Group, planning to build Ukraine’s largest plant for processing solid domestic waste in Zhytomyr.
DTEK Renewables has raised EUR 90 million for construction of the first phase of Prymorska wind farm with a capacity of 100 MW in Zaporizhia region, the press service of DTEK Energy Holding reported. The press service said that the loan for the construction of the first stage of the wind farm was issued by a consortium of German banks (Bayerische Landesbank, KfW IPEX-Bank, Bremer Kreditbank and others) with risk coverage provided by German export credit agency (ECA) Euler Hermes. The loan term is 10 years after the technical commissioning of the plant.
DTEK reminded that this is the third financing agreement signed with European financial institutions for the construction of the company’s wind energy projects. For the implementation of the first wind farm project in the company’s portfolio, the Botiyevska Wind Farm, DTEK raised loans in the total amount of EUR 235 million from Germany’s LandesBank Berlin (Berliner Sparkasse) in 2012-2014.
DTEK CEO Maksym Tymchenko said that in recent years, the company raised EUR 335 million from German banks for the construction of new wind farms. This April, DTEK and Chinese company CMEC signed an agreement valued at EUR 134 million to build Nikopol solar power plant (200 MW) with the total cost of the project of EUR 235 million.
“Such sustainable interest from international investors in renewable generation in Ukraine gives us confidence in the implementation of our strategic plans – to have 1,000 MW of ‘green’ facilities in the portfolio by 2020,” he said.
The city of Dnipro is to build an industrial park, Innovation Forpost, on 61.4 ha with UAH 2.7 billion in investment, the Dnipro Development Agency has said.
“All procedures for Innovation Forpost industrial park blueprints were completed in July 2018. A total of UAH 2.7 billion in investment will be raised for the industrial park within five years, 9.93% of this amount is planned to be taken from the city’s budget, 9.45% from the state, the rest of the financing are funds of investors and the management company,” Director of the Dnipro Development Agency Volodymyr Panchenko told Interfax-Ukraine.
According to Deputy Mayor of Dnipro Jaanika Merilo, Innovation Forpost will be located 4 km from the city center on an area formerly owned by Interpipe’s plant. The park will house offices and R&D centers, an exhibition complex with an innovative science museum, a HypeUA testing site, business incubators, training campuses, residential blocks with a kindergarten, a hotel and green areas.
Panchenko adds that the development of transport and engineering networks will begin in October 2018. Construction is scheduled to start in the spring of 2019, and the first facilities of the park will be put into operation by the end of the year.
“The first facilities of the industrial park will be the front office of the industrial park, the Industrial EXPO exhibition center, offices and the prototyping center as part of the business incubator, urban amenities,” Panchenko said.
According to him, the agency is preparing separate investment projects and investors are being selected under each of them.
“We already have requests for four project sites in the production area, companies come from the innovation sphere. For example, today one company plans to produce commodities by printing products on 3D printers. There are also investors interested in building an expo center on 12,000 square meters. A trade and service area is an attracting project too,” he said.
The Innovation Forpost project envisages the construction of new buildings (production and office buildings, maintenance complexes) and the reconstruction of existing ones. For example, the foundry is planned to be transformed into exhibition art space.
According to agency, the park will create 5,000 jobs.
“For us, this site is one of ten that we plan to launch in Dnipro. Investors have Ukrainian and foreign roots. It is wrong to think that they do not want to invest, it’s just necessary to create favorable conditions,” Panchenko said.
According to him, not only budget funds and private investment but also grants can be used to finance a project. In particular, the Dnipro Development Agency this year has won two European grants worth UAH 22 million.
The government of Ukraine will offer Moldova to build a bridge across the Dniester in Vinnytsia region, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Volodymyr Kistion wrote on Facebook on Wednesday.
“From the economic point of view, the project is advantageous not only to Ukraine and Moldova, but also to the entire European Union. Therefore the Ukrainian government is going to come up with a proposal to the Moldovan side to sign an intergovernmental agreement soon and start building the bridge,” he said.
According to Kistion, the shortest way between Kyiv and Chisinau today is the road through the city of Yampil in Vinnytsia region, which also includes a ferry service between two European countries with a length of 100 km, which has become obsolete and obsolescent long time ago.
The construction of this bridge is stipulated in the Transport Strategy of Ukraine until 2030, he added.
Norwegian-based NBT in April 2018 bought Syvashenergoprom (Kherson region, operates a wind farm with a capacity of about 3 MW) and intends to build a wind power plant with an installed capacity of 250-330 MW in the adjacent territories, the company’s website said. “In April 2018 NBT acquired the Ukrainian company Syvashenergoprom, which serves a 3 MW wind farm and is developing another 250-330 MW wind power project … NBT also signed several contracts for the development of other projects in Ukrainian wind energy, continues to seek new opportunities for the development of this market,” the report says.
As reported, in 2006 Kherson Regional State Administration transferred the unfinished Syvash wind power plant to concession to Syvashenergoprom until 2055. In 2011 Syvashenergoprom signed a lease agreement for 12 hectares of land under the concession wind farm and 1,300 hectares for the construction of new wind and solar generating facilities. NBT currently owns a 49% stake in Linxi wind farm with a capacity of 100 MW and a 33% stake in Baicheng wind farm with a capacity of 49.5 MW in China.
T.B.Fruit, one of the largest processors of fruits and berries in Ukraine, plans in 2019-2020 to start the construction of the third plant for processing apples and berries in Poland with an estimated cost of more than EUR40 million. “We plan to build the third factory in Mazowieckie Voivodeship. We are now at the stage of designing production lines. There is already a ready-made construction project, a building permit has been obtained from state authorities. The planned start of construction is 2019-2020. The third plant will have a capacity of 3,000 tonnes of apples a day with the possibility of increasing up to 4,500 tonnes, and up to 700 tonnes of berries per day,” Director for Production at T.B.Fruit Oleh Mochaliuk told Interfax-Ukraine. Investments in the specified enterprise will roughly amount to more than EUR40 million.
According to Mochaliuk, T.B.Fruit owns two plants in Poland (the first was bought in 2010, the second one in 2012) with a total processing capacity of 3,000 tonnes of apples per day. In addition to apples, strawberry, raspberry, currants, cherry, aronia, red currants, gooseberry are processed at Polish plants. He said juice production and sales in the first half of 2018 decreased by 30-40% compared to the same period in 2017 due to a poor fruit harvest.
