During the war, the OKKO gas station network has reconstructed about a third of its gas stations, investing $350-400 thousand in each modernization, said Vasyl Danylyak, CEO of OKKO GROUP and co-founder of GORO Mountain Resort.
“In three years of war, OKKO has updated a third of its network. I believe this is the highest figure among all networks operating in Ukraine today,” Danylyak said in the company’s YouTube project DIALOGI.
As Danylyak explained, the decision to modernize the gas stations was linked to the desire to maintain market leadership amid a decline and fierce competition. He noted that the war has significantly changed the distribution of gas station chains in the market, with OKKO increasing its share from approximately 15% at the start of the war to 22% by the end of 2022. Thus, according to him, OKKO took first place, although before the war it was held by the Privat group, which also had a 22-24% share.
“But we understood that we needed to consolidate our position on the market. And we decided to carry out a massive rebranding and reconstruction of our first-generation filling stations,” said the CEO of OKKO.
He added that the modernization began in mid-2022 and became widespread in 2023. According to him, approximately 60 gas stations were modernized in 2023 and 2024.
“On average, the reconstruction of one gas station – interior and exterior – cost approximately $350,000 in 2023. Today, due to slight price increases, it is about $400,000,” Danilyak said.
According to the OKKO CEO, the network has lost approximately $120 million since the beginning of 2022 due to the destruction of its oil depots as a result of Russian sanctions.
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 gas station chains in Ukraine under the OKKO brand, with about 400 gas stations.
The founder and ultimate beneficiary of the group is Vitaliy Antonov.
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.
OKKO Group plans to fully launch a bioethanol plant worth EUR110 million in the third quarter of 2026, said Vasyl Danyliak, CEO of the group.
“This year we are going to fully commission the elevator and warehouse group and will be able to accept corn from our cluster. In the third quarter of 2026, we plan to fully launch the plant,” Danyliak said during the We build Ukraine conference on Thursday, which was broadcast online.
He noted that the total investment in the plant over 2024-2026 is EUR110 million, of which EUR35 million is the group’s own contribution and EUR75 million is debt financing. Of this, EUR60 million was provided by the EBRD for a period of nine years, and another EUR15 million by Raiffeisen Bank Ukraine for a period of seven years.
According to Danyliak, the annual capacity of the plant for bioethanol, the need for which is growing with the mandatory addition of 5% of this alcohol to motor gasoline from May 1, 2025, is 83 thousand tons, for livestock feed – 70 thousand tons, for corn processing – 270 thousand tons.
As reported, in June 2024, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and OKKO signed a EUR 60 million loan agreement for the construction of a new bioethanol plant in Ukraine at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin.
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.
Schneider Electric, a leader in digital transformation in the field of energy management and automation, and the OKKO filling station network have implemented a large-scale project for uninterrupted power supply and infrastructure reliability – 290 out of 410 filling stations of the network will be equipped with uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) with modern powerful batteries in 2022-2024, and in 2025 it is planned to equip another 50 filling stations of the network with the same UPS.
The equipment chosen by OKKO is designed to protect the power supply in the most unstable conditions. Schneider Electric lithium-ion UPS has a long service life without battery replacement (up to 12-15 years), long autonomy time with its compact dimensions and ease of maintenance.
“Even before the large-scale blackouts, OKKO started implementing a plan to modernize the corporate data network. We realized that we needed efficient equipment that would ensure the smooth operation of all vital filling station systems – cash registers, fuel dispensers, equipment providing Wi-Fi and other customer services. We started looking for the right powerful equipment, analyzing the world’s experience. The solution from Schneider Electric provided the result we needed. In fact, regardless of power outages at OKKO filling stations, customers will not face delays in payments or lack of Wi-Fi,” said Sergiy Lesko, CIO of OKKO.
“Schneider Electric has deep experience in technologies and practices that can improve energy efficiency and sustainability, understands and carefully studies the specific needs of each Ukrainian customer,” said Volodymyr Dokhlenko, Head of Secure Power at Schneider Electric in Ukraine, Czech Republic and Slovakia, ”As part of this project, our client received uninterrupted power supply to the filling station for up to 5 hours, as well as the preservation of critical data and round-the-clock monitoring of the UPS network.”
The UPS network monitoring system is provided by the equipment supplier. Thanks to predictive analytics of the UPS operation status and notifications about the need to replace it soon, service work is carried out in a timely manner, minimizing the risk of downtime.
About OKKO
The OKKO filling station network is one of the largest filling station networks in Ukraine (as of the beginning of 2025 – 410 filling stations). The company also has a network of on-the-go catering establishments, stationary and mobile laboratories for quality control of petroleum products, etc.
The company is one of the largest taxpayers in the fuel market. Based on the results of operations in 2024, the companies of OKKO Group paid a total of UAH 21.1 billion in taxes to the budget and state funds. This is UAH 5.6 billion, or 36%, more than in 2023.
About Schneider Electric
Schneider’s purpose is to create impact by empowering everyone to make the most of our energy and resources, ensuring progress and sustainability for all. We call it Life Is On.
Our mission is to be a trusted partner in sustainability and efficiency.
We are a global technology leader, bringing world-class expertise in electrification, automation and digitalization to smart industries, reliable infrastructure, future-proof data centers, smart buildings and intuitive homes. Drawing on our deep industry expertise, we provide integrated end-to-end AI-enabled industrial IoT solutions with connected products, automation, software and services, creating digital twins to drive profitable growth for our customers.
Ourmain resource is our 150,000 employees and more than a million partners operating in more than 100 countries to ensure proximity to our customers and stakeholders. We support diversity and inclusion in everything we do, guided by our meaningful purpose of a sustainable future for all.
State-owned Sense Bank (Kyiv) has entered into a multicurrency credit line agreement with OKKO Group equivalent to EUR 20 million, the bank’s press service reports.
According to the terms of the agreement, the funds can be used for both investment purposes and working capital replenishment, and the term of the agreement is 5 years.
Commenting on the event, Olena Gorobets, Sense Bank’s Director of Corporate Business for Industrial Enterprises, noted that providing financial instruments for critical enterprises is one of the priorities of the financial institution.
“Even in today’s challenging environment, our company finds ways to develop and invest in the Ukrainian economy, provide customers with quality fuel and quality service. An important key to this is financial mobility, the ability to freely operate working capital at any time. The new credit line gives us such opportunities,” comments OKKO Vice President for Finance Nazar Kupibida.
As reported, on February 10, Sense Bank launched the grant program “Support for Energy Resilience of Micro and Small Enterprises in Ukraine”, which is being implemented by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation and the German government and is being implemented by the German federal company Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH together with the Entrepreneurship Development Fund.
According to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), as of December 1, 2024, Sens Bank was ranked 9th among 62 banks operating at that time (UAH 143.56 billion) in terms of total assets. According to them, the net profit of the financial institution for this period amounted to UAH 3.83 billion.
OKKO Group has begun construction of the first hotel complex of the GORO Mountain Resort in the Lviv Carpathians, the company’s press service reports.
“The construction of the first hotel complex is a strategically important stage in the implementation of the holistic concept of an international all-season resort. According to the master plan developed jointly with Austrian experts, a balanced combination of mountain, ski, hotel and entertainment infrastructure will help increase the length of guests’ stay, which will have a positive economic effect for the entire region,” said Vasyl Danyliak, CEO of OKKO Group and co-founder of GORO Mountain Resort.
The first complex includes three 415-room designer hotels with a total area of 48 thousand square meters, of which 11 thousand square meters are allocated for commercial and entertainment infrastructure, and construction of the first one has begun, the press service ofInterfax-Ukraine said.
OKKO Group started construction of a large-scale recreational project GORO Mountain Resort in October 2024. The total area of the future resort is almost 1.2 thousand hectares, of which 360 hectares are planned for mountain and ski infrastructure, and more than 800 hectares for the development of hotel, commercial and recreational facilities.
GORO Development, an investment and development company that is part of OKKO Group, is engaged in the sale of the resort’s hotel real estate. It is responsible for the development of architectural concepts, construction, functional and recreational content, as well as attracting investments in the hotel business.
Over the next 15 years, GORO Development plans to build 25 hotels with 5,150 rooms at the resort. The first phase on a 127-hectare plot near the village of Volosyanka, 5 km from the village of Slavsko in Lviv region, will include five hotel complexes, a total of nine hotels with 1100+ rooms, and is scheduled to be completed in 2028-2029.
In addition to hotels, it is also planned to build 41 75 km long ski slopes with 342 hectares of snow, two modern gondola lifts and 11 chair lifts, as well as Welcome and Mountain centers.
“GORO will become one of the largest recreational and infrastructure facilities in Ukraine, which will affect the country’s position in the European tourism arena,” Danyliak said.
As reported, in December 2024, the project received a long-term loan from FUIB for 10 years to implement key ski infrastructure facilities, including the Welcome Center, the lower station of the gondola cable car, and a multi-level parking lot, which are already under construction.
The total investment in GORO Mountain Resort is estimated at $1.5 billion. Of this amount, OKKO Group plans to invest $500 million at the expense of its own and credit funds, and another $1 billion is planned to be raised from other investors.
OKKO Group in GORO Mountain Resort acts as the sole owner, major investor, master developer, developer and operator to ensure the harmonious development and holistic concept of the all-season recreational project. OKKO Group has engaged world-class Austrian experts to create an international format: PKF Hospitality (investment analysis and concept), ILF Group (master plan and ski infrastructure) and Doppelmayr/Garaventa Gruppe (design of the lift system and cable cars).
OKKO Group unites more than 10 diversified businesses in manufacturing, 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.
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