Metinvest Mining and Metallurgical Group plans to carry out a large-scale green transformation of its Ukrainian assets – GOKs, Kametstal and Zaporizhstal – worth about $9 billion within 5-10 years after the end of the war.
According to a report by dsnews.ua, this will require external financing.
It is specified that as soon as the hostilities end, the group will increase production (currently, its enterprises are 65-70% utilized), so the equipment needs to be prepared for operation in advance, which is being done now.
At the same time, the strategy remains unchanged: to create a global company with Ukrainian roots based on green and digital transformation of production facilities. This requires high-quality raw materials, semi-finished products and sufficient clean energy sources.
Meanwhile, the large-scale green modernization of enterprises in Ukraine has been put on hold due to an acute shortage of electricity of any origin. However, Metinvest can help develop Ukrainian assets by investing in cleaner production. For example, the construction of a green rolling plant in Italy with a capacity of about 3 million tons of products per year will increase the utilization of the group’s Ukrainian iron and steel plants, which can no longer sell products in Ukraine after the occupation of Mariupol’s steel mills. The Italian plant is to be built jointly with partners in three to four years with up to $2 billion of credit and partnership funds.
In addition, the GOKs that receive orders will be able to modernize their production to produce high-quality pellets. In particular, Northern GOK is currently competing in the European market thanks to its upgraded production of pellets with improved characteristics.
Metinvest’s strategy for transitioning to green steel production long before the war included the conversion of blast furnaces at its steelmaking facilities to DRI (direct reduction of iron) technology. This process requires improved pellets as raw materials. Successful tests of the production of such DRI pellets were carried out at Central GOK at the beginning of the war.
The war has put major strategic projects on hold, but the Group is responding quickly to adapt its investment program to maintain efficient production, primarily by investing in existing facilities that need to be modernized. Since the beginning of the war, Metinvest has invested over $300 million annually.
In 2023, Zaporizhstal and Kametstal overhauled blast furnaces. In addition, Zaporizhstal overhauled its rolling mill equipment and Kametstal overhauled its coke oven batteries. In total, UAH 23 billion has been invested in the modernization of these two enterprises over the past two years.
“Metinvest is also consistently launching new coking coal longwalls at Pokrovskoye Coal Group. At the beginning of the year, the 11th longwall for coking coal production in Block 10 of the Pokrovskoye Mine Administration was launched.
In addition, targeted investments are important. For example, the modernization of the roasting machine in the pellet production shop at Pivdennyi GOK in 2023 helped to establish the production of homogeneous pellets with an iron content of 65%, which allowed the GOK to maintain a competitive position in the European iron ore market.
This year, the company plans to invest $320 million in capital and about $350 million in operating investments in equipment and work sites. The priority is to repair blast furnaces and sintering machines, maintain the GOK’s equipment and develop the mine management department in Pokrovsk.
Ukrtransgaz plans to invest UAH 998.277 million in the development of natural gas storage facilities in 2024 in accordance with the gas storage development plan for 2024-2033 approved by the National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission (NEURC) at a meeting on Tuesday.
“We are moving towards 100% fulfillment of investment programs in general,” said Roman Malyutin, Ukrtransgaz CEO, at the meeting.
According to him, the approved plan provides for the reconstruction and construction of fixed assets of technological processes in the gas storage system, the development of critical infrastructure security facilities, including cybersecurity, and information technology.
According to the document, the company intends to invest UAH 472.355 million this year in the operation of gas storage facilities, UAH 415.988 million in the development of underground gas storage facilities, UAH 66.442 million in the modernization and purchase of vehicles, special machines and mechanisms, UAH 27.413 million in the purchase of diagnostic and inspection equipment and other devices, and UAH 16.079 million in industrial and administrative buildings.
In total, Ukrtransgaz’s gas storage development plan for 2024-2033 envisages an investment of UAH 14 billion 534.148 million.
SAP (Germany), a software and cloud services developer, plans to invest EUR2 million in the localization of its products in Ukraine in 2024, the Ministry of Digital Transformation reported on Facebook.
“Since the beginning of 2022, the company (SAP) has been supporting Ukraine by providing services and software licenses free of charge – now it has decided to continue doing so until the end of the first quarter of 2024,” Deputy Prime Minister for Innovation, Education, Science and Technology Development and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov wrote on Facebook on Friday.
According to the Ministry of Digital Transformation, the company’s technological support provided to Ukraine in 2023-2024 is estimated at EUR65 million.
Fedorov recalled that in 2023, the Defense Ministry introduced a system from SAP that helps manage some of the resources, in particular, it accelerated the processing of applications from brigades for the supply of items. As of today, 44 countries use SAP products in the defense sector, including 28 out of 31 NATO member states, the Deputy Prime Minister said.
According to him, SAP products also help in the field of medical procurement. “A cloud-based solution has been implemented in this area to quickly find and engage suppliers who can deliver critical goods. The company also helped to set up catalogs for searching and comparing prices for specific medical products, which made it possible to purchase them at lower prices,” Fedorov said.
The Ministry of Digital Transformation also reminded that SAP has recently launched an ERP solution for medium-sized businesses called GROW with SAP, and joining the SAP Business Network makes it easier for Ukrainian goods to enter international markets.
Earlier it was reported that the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine is implementing an automated defense resource management system based on System Analysis Program Development (SAP), which is one of the leading logistics systems in the world.
The chain of perfumery and cosmetics stores EVA plans to open up to 60 new stores in 2024, with estimated investments in this area amounting to about UAH 200 million.
The company’s press service told Interfax-Ukraine that the focus will remain on the development of the EVA.UA online platform.
By the end of 2024, the company plans to complete the construction of a new warehouse in Lviv, and in 2025, a large-scale logistics center in Odesa.
“We are planning to make them (logistics warehouses – IF-U) automated – with robots. We are still finalizing the necessary investments, but we already see that they will amount to billions of hryvnias. We continue to invest in the EVA business despite the war. Because we believe in Ukraine’s victory and that the country will be restored and people will return home,” the press service quoted Olga Shevchenko, Executive Director of RUSH LLC, as saying.
According to the release, since the beginning of the year, EVA has opened 31 new stores and reopened 29, including nine new stores and five reopened stores in the third quarter. As of the end of the third quarter, the chain has 1,035 operating outlets.
New stores are opened mainly in the Women’s Energy concept, which the chain presented last year in Vinnytsia. There are more than 30 such EVAs in total.
According to Viktor Serednyi, COO of RUSH LLC, there is also a gradual rebranding of existing facilities that need to be updated, but a complete rebranding of the entire chain is not yet in the cards.
“The cost of re-equipping one store to fit the new concept is about UAH 3 million. Opening a completely new store can cost from UAH 5 to 10 million, depending on the size,” he said.
By the end of the year, the company plans to open 26 new EVAs. In particular, a new flagship EVA beauty lab is to appear in the Respublika shopping center. This format will offer more cosmetics and perfumes, a dermatology center, professional hair care series and an expanded category of premium brands.
RUSH LLC, which manages the EVA chain, was founded in 2002. It has 52 own trademarks (OTMs), which are represented by household goods, perfumes, cosmetics, jewelry, personal care products, accessories, underwear and children’s products. In 2022, the share of FMCG sales in physical terms was 30.6%. The company employs about 13.4 thousand people.
According to Opendatabot, the owner of RUSH LLC is Korsolyushyn LLC (100%), and the company’s ultimate beneficiaries are Ukrainian businessmen Ruslan Shostak and Valeriy Kiptyk.
According to RUSH’s financial results, its net profit in 2022 increased by 16.7% to UAH 973.8 million, while the value of its assets decreased by 2.5% to UAH 10.3 billion. The EVA network’s turnover in 2022 decreased by 7% year-on-year to UAH 15.7 billion.
Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest mobile operator, intends to invest up to $10 million in creating an ecosystem of services for patients in the healthcare sector based on Helsi (Healthy Ukraine LLC).
“Our focus is on the development of digital services based on the telecom service we provide to our customers. A good example is our investment in Helsi. We invested in a small company, which at the first stage was an information system for medical institutions and patients. What are we doing now? We are investing to build an ecosystem of healthcare services for patients based on this connection. The investment in Helsi is up to $10 million,” said the president of Kyivstar.
He specified that the funding will be allocated as part of a total investment of about $600 million from the parent company VEON.
According to Komarov, the company is actively developing telemedicine services, which were used by more than 1.1 million people in the first half of 2023. In the near future, it is planned to launch functionality that will allow patients to track test results in the app and sign up for seasonal vaccinations.
Earlier it was reported that Kyivstar invested $3 million in the company’s development after purchasing a controlling stake in Helsi (Healthy Ukraine LLC) in August 2022.
Helsi is a medical information system and a leading digital healthcare provider, known as a provider of SaaS medical information system solutions for 1.3 thousand public and private clinics. “Kyivstar acquired 69.99% in August last year for UAH 555.74 million.
The number of employees has almost doubled to 240 over the past year. In the second quarter of 2023, Helsi increased the number of registered users to 25.4 million patients, up from 25 million a quarter earlier.
As of mid-October 2023, the number of active unique users in the app increased to 1.1 million, and including the web version – to more than 2 million Ukrainians, which is equal to the pre-war figures.
Since the beginning of the year, Helsi has introduced new services: urgent medical consultations, online chat with a doctor and exchange of medical documents, search for doctors and medical facilities nearby, vaccination calendar, and medical certificate service.
Financial-industrial group TAS plans to invest at least $30-40 million in the development of its own production and land bank in 2024, TAS Group founder Serhiy Tigipko said in an interview with Forbes-Ukraine on Wednesday.
“So far we are looking at what gives synergy. This is our own production, primarily in Ukraine. But we are watching the market, if any interesting enterprises will appear. We are definitely ready to invest in agriculture – in the land bank, first of all. This is a strategy for us,” he said.
Tigipko added that he is looking out for investments in processing, which the group has not yet engaged in. “Where exactly we will go, we do not know yet to the end,” – said the founder of the group “TAS”.
The businessman also said that among the plans for 2024 is to increase the production of apple concentrate.
“We want to increase the export volume of apple concentrate. We plan to invest in one of the two plants, and if everything succeeds, to double production,” Tigipko added.
At the same time, according to the founder of TAS Group, logistics currently “eats up” a large share of funds. He noted that his own logistics company mitigates the situation, but the issue of logistics remains complicated, so the group is studying the possibility of acquiring a European transportation company.
“We are considering buying a European transportation company. This will allow to link the supply chain for the client – both in Ukraine and the EU,” he said.
Financial and industrial group “TAS” was founded in 1998 by businessman Serhiy Tihipko. Its business interests include the financial sector (banking and insurance segments) and pharmacy sector, as well as industry, real estate and venture projects.
