As part of a partnership project with OKKO Group, Agrotrade Agricultural Holding shipped 24.4 thousand tons of rapeseed by sea from Odesa to Ghent (Belgium), the press service of the agricultural holding reported on Facebook.
According to the report, half of this cargo – about 12 thousand tons – is grain grown on the fields of the agricultural holding in 2024. The rest of the cargo belongs to OKKO Group.
“This shipment is a big step forward for us, as we used to export small batches of rapeseed by sea – 3-5 thousand tons each. This year, we agreed with OKKO that we would make a partnership project, share the risks and ship the vessel together. This has many advantages, in particular, in terms of saving on ship freight. There were many difficult moments during the shipment, but we successfully dealt with them. In addition, the economy was one of the best this year compared to other sales,” said Andrii But, Director of the Foreign Trade Department of Agrotrade.
At the same time, he noted the high quality of rapeseed grown and sold by the agricultural holding. In particular, the oil content in the grain is 45%, while the basic indicators are usually 40-42%.
Agrotrade Group is a vertically integrated holding company with a full agro-industrial cycle (production, processing, storage and trade of agricultural products). It cultivates over 70 thousand hectares of land in Chernihiv, Sumy, Poltava and Kharkiv regions. Its main crops are sunflower, corn, winter wheat, soybeans and rapeseed. It has its own network of elevators with a simultaneous storage capacity of 570 thousand tons.
The group also produces hybrid seeds of corn and sunflower, barley, and winter wheat. In 2014, a seed plant with a capacity of 20 thousand tons of seeds per year was built on the basis of Kolos seed farm (Kharkiv region). In 2018, Agrotrade launched its own brand Agroseeds on the market.
Vsevolod Kozhemiako is the founder and CEO of Agrotrade.
OKKO Group unites more than 10 diversified businesses in production, trade, construction, insurance, maintenance and other services. The flagship company of the group is Galnaftogaz, which operates one of the largest filling stations in Ukraine under the OKKO brand, with about 400 filling stations.
The group’s founder and ultimate beneficiary is Vitaliy Antonov.
The head of the Odessa regional military administration Oleg Kiper and the commander of the operational strategic grouping of troops “Odessa” jointly signed an order on civilian access to the sea.
“From today, the first open zone is the beach ‘Kaleton’ in Odessa,” Kiper wrote in his Telegram channel on Saturday.
He noted that the list will be supplemented as the inspections are passed.
“We expect to open about 20 beaches in Odessa and the area, as well as one lagoon in the Izmail district,” Kiper said.
At the same time, he reminded that during the air alert, in the detection of suspicious objects, during a storm of 2 points from 2 – the stay of people near the sea is prohibited.
The head of the Odessa regional military administration Oleg Kiper in August 2023 by his order strengthened customs control in the region when exporting agricultural products for export, at the same time on the market of export of agricultural products appeared about 40 companies with signs of fictitiousness, reported hromadske in the investigation “Grain Baron”.
The publication noted that through the ports of Odessa in 2023 passed 85 percent of the country’s agro-exports.
When analyzing the data of the Ukrainian customs, access to which is provided by the international service ImportGenius, journalists found 40 companies with signs of fictitiousness, which entered the agro export market after the Odessa OSA established “manual control” over it.
These companies started exporting grain after August 2023. They have never engaged in exports before, were founded or changed owners in 2023, are not part of well-known agroholdings and do not own land.
“The largest by export volume of these firms has the same phone number as another 139 legal entities. And in second place is a company whose founder is probably a psychologist from Uzbekistan, for whom 20 legal entities have been registered in Ukraine over the past two years,” the investigation said.
“Suspicious” companies for the last quarter of 2023 exported through the ports of the Odessa region about 800 thousand tons of agricultural products worth about $ 150 million, or 6 billion UAH, says the publication and recalls that the head of the Odessa Regional State Administration explained the establishment of manual control by the need to fight against one-day companies and so-called “black exports”.
Such one-day companies export grain and do not return foreign currency proceeds to the country, do not pay taxes, have a fake director and do not have an office. After several transactions with a budget of several million dollars, the company disappears.
The chairman of the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Union “Agrarnaya Rada” Dmytro Kohan drew attention to the fact that any manual control has increased risks of corruption.
The Odessa regional military administration refused to comment on the facts revealed by journalists.
Itown Mall will appear in Odessa as part of the ITown Residential Complex (Sofievskaya Street, 1a), scheduled to open in the fourth quarter of 2024, the press service of the Ukrainian Trade Guild (UTG) told the Interfax-Ukraine agency, which is the developer of the concept and exclusive broker of the shopping center.
According to the press release, ITown Mall has three ground floors and two underground floors. GBA The total floor area (GBA) is 20,962 square meters and the leasable area (GLA) is 15 thousand square meters. The minus second floor will house home goods stores and a sports complex, the minus first floor will house a supermarket, the upper floors will house clothing and footwear department stores and technology stores.
The project of ITown business class residential complex is realized by “Prostir” group of companies. The residential complex includes five 9-25 storey residential buildings with a total of 378 apartments. According to the developer’s concept, in addition to housing and shopping center, the complex will also include class A offices, a university, scientific laboratories, an apart-hotel, a co-working space with a swimming pool on the roof, a cinema, a museum, etc. The project will be located in the center of the complex. Residential section E will be commissioned in 2023, and two more sections are scheduled for commissioning in 2024. UTG was established in 2001. It has developed more than 1300 real estate concepts. Over the years, the company has leased out 4.7 million square meters of commercial space in Ukraine.
In Odessa officially opened areas for bathing and recuperation, reports the head of the OBA Oleg Kiper.
“Signed a joint order with the Commander of the operational strategic grouping of troops “Odessa” on the access of people to the sea,” Kiper wrote in his Telegram channel on Saturday.
The head of the OBA added that the first open zones include Caleton beach, inclusive beach, municipal beach (area of 14 Fontana), Ikra beach, Chaika beach, municipal beach (area of 10 Fontana), but the list will be supplemented as checks are passed.
Stay of people on the beaches is allowed from 08.00 to 20.00.
“During the air alarm, in the detection of suspicious objects, during a storm from 2 points, on coastal structures (piers, traverses, breakwaters), outside the areas for bathing stay of people is prohibited!”, – emphasized the head of the OBA.
In addition, mandatory is the presence of a rescue boat and mesh fences to protect against explosive objects in open areas for bathing.
“In case of necessity should be organized surveys by the diving service underwater and above-water area of the Black Sea,” – added Kiper.
On the beaches will be daily coastal cleaning, provided there is no emergency situation.
To the water area of the Black Sea exit is allowed only to rescue services.
The unloading of railcars with grain in the ports of Greater Odessa has stopped due to the stoppage of the “grain corridor”: only 10 railcars were unloaded over the past 24 hours, Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ) reported in its weekly report on Monday.
The average daily indicator of carload shipment in the ports of Greater Odessa due to the blocking of the “grain corridor” in July amounted to 80 cars/day, having deteriorated over the last week by 30 w/c.
At the same time, a slight increase in the number of railcars with grain, which move in the direction of the ports of Greater Odessa – up to 168 cars from 109 cars, the report said.
The load on the port of “Izmail”, which is an alternative for the export of grain cargoes continues to increase. Over the past week (from July 24 to July 31), the total queue of cars that move in the direction of the port amounted to 7.8 thousand cars, of this number – 3.034 thousand cars with grain. This is by 500 cars, or 19.7%, more than last week, when there were 2,534 cars in the queue.
The average daily unloading rate of grain cars at the port “Izmail” is 88 cars per day, which is 15 cars per day or 14.5% less than in the previous week.
“Due to weather conditions (wind, precipitation) and restrictions on the passage of trains, the daily unloading of grain cargo in the port “Izmail” decreased. The situation with unloading is gradually normalizing”, – it was reported.
In addition, in the direction of the transition Serpneve-1-Basarabeasca (Moldova) is fixed accumulation of about 1.3 thousand cars, including grain – 319 cars, with oil – 153 cars.
Earlier it was reported that the number of ships in the port of Izmail, according to the data of Marine Traffic monitoring application, increased to 120 on Monday against 109 last week, 32 more ships are expected to arrive. During the week, the number of ships at the port ranged from 111-113. The number of vessels at the Port of Reni decreased to 58 vessels on Monday compared to 64 last week. Another 16 vessels are expected to arrive. On Saturday there were 54 ships in the port, during the week – 58-61. Traffic has not resumed in the largest Black Sea ports.
