Business news from Ukraine

UKRENERGO SIGNS CONTRACT WITH SWISS LAW LALIVE TO PRESENT COMPANY’S INTEREST IN COURT IN CRIMEAN ASSETS CASE AGAINST RUSSIA

National Energy Company Ukrenergo has signed a contract with Lalive S.A. (Switzerland) to present the interests of the company in a case on compensation of losses due to annexation of Crimea by Russia. According to a company report in the ProZorro e-procurement system, the contract on the provision of legal services worth EUR 1.537 million (or UAH 49.9 million without VAT) was signed on February 6, 2019.
Covington & Burling, Hughes Hubbard & Reed, and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan UK also took part in the tender.
Lalive will provide Ukrenergo with the services of preparing and sending a notice of arbitration to the dispute, determining the nomination of arbitrators and shaping the composition of international arbitration, drafting a claim and applying to arbitration, representing the interests of the company in arbitration tribunal and obtaining the award.
As reported, Lalive represented the interests of the following companies in disputes against the Russian Federation regarding lost investments: Ukrnafta, Stabil, and Yukos Capital.
In April 2018 Ukrenergo officially notified the Russian Federation about the start of an investment dispute over the company’s assets seized in Crimea. According to estimates by Ukrenergo, only the cost of the company’s power grids in the peninsula is about $1 billion.
Ukrenergo operates trunk and interstate transmission lines, as well as centralized dispatching of the country’s integrated power grids. It is a state-owned enterprise, which was managed by Ukraine’s Energy and Coal Industry Ministry.

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UKRZALIZNYTSIA RECEIVES 30 LOCOMOTIVES FROM GENERAL ELECTRIC UNDER CONTRACT

JSC Ukrzaliznytsia has received the last five locomotive made by General Electric Transportation (the United States), Ukrzaliznytsia Board Chairman Yevhen Kravtsov has said on its Facebook page.
Ukrzaliznytsia received all 30 contracted locomotives GE. The last five met in Chornomorsk on Friday [February 1],” he said.
The received locomotives will be sent to Kriukov Car Building Works (KCBW, Poltava region) for retrofitting, where 10 more U.S. locomotives are already in work.
According to Kravtsov, GE locomotives show themselves to be extremely effective.
“As an example, we save fuel by 30% in the Zaporizhia-Kamysh-Zoria-Volnovakha section. In addition, the locomotives of the old fleet run an average of 360 km per day, and GE diesel locomotives – 540 km,” he said.
According to the head of Ukrzaliznytsia, 15 new locomotives now ensure a quarter of diesel locomotive traction in the three regional branches where they operate: Prydniprovska, Donetsk and Odesa.

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NOVA POSHTA GROUP SIGNS FIVE-YEAR CONTRACT WITH IKEA

NP Logistic, part of the Nova Poshta Group, has signed a contract on the provision of logistic services to the Swedish furniture and home accessories retailer IKEA, planning to open its first store in Ukraine in 2019.
The press service of Nova Poshta reported on Wednesday that the company will provide storage and order completion services for the first IKEA city store in Kyiv.
“We are glad that IKEA selected us. This would allow uniting prime standards of fulfillment and delivery with the furniture retail,” the co-owner of Nova Poshta, Viacheslav Klymov, said.
NP Logistic’s core business is fulfillment: storage of goods at warehouses, online order completion and delivering them to customers.
As reported, in September 2018, IKEA officially announced that the group plans to open a first city store in Ukraine in 2019 in the Ocean Mall in Kyiv.
The development of the network in Ukraine will be under the aegis of IKEA Southeast Europe, which is part of the IKEA Group (Ingka Holding B.V.). The company is engaged in retail business IKEA in Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Slovenia.
Swedish IKEA is the world’s largest retail chains for furniture and household goods with 367 stores on 30 markets.
Nova Poshta was founded in 2001. Its network has more than 2,350 depots and a fleet of more than 3,600 trucks. In 2017, more than 145 million items were delivered.

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DONBASENERGO SIGNS CONTRACT WITH CHINA DONGFANG ELECTRIC TO RECONSTRUCT ONE UNIT

PJSC Donbasenergo has signed a contract with Dongfang Electric International Corporation (China) for reconstruction of unit No. 6 of the Sloviansk thermal power plant (TPP) with its division into units 6A and 6B of 330 MW each.
According to the company’s press release, the cost of the contract for the reconstruction using CFB technology (the technology of coal combustion in a circulating fluidized bed) is $684.296 million.
According to the plan, unit No. 6A will be put into operation in July 2022, unit No. 6B in July 2023. The units will burn steam coal.
The project implementation will extend the life of thermal power plants by 40 years, increase their operation efficiency, reduce specific fuel consumption and maintenance costs. The new units will comply with all ENTSO-E technical requirements and the European environmental directives.
Reconstruction of unit No. 6 of the Sloviansk TPP will significantly reduce the cost of electricity produced, burn low grade coal without using natural gas in the load range of 40-100%.
Donbasenergo Director General Eduard Bondarenko said that efficiency of the units will be at least 42%. The company seeks to receive the funds for investment in the tariff for electricity transmission in the amount of 30%. The reconstruction will be financed using the loan from a Chinese bank by 70%.
Donbasenergo operates Starobesheve (located in the occupied territory) and Sloviansk thermal power plants.

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STATE-OWNED UKRENERGO SIGNS CONTRACT WITH GENERAL ELECTRIC FOR RECONSTRUCTION OF SUBSTATIONS

National Energy Company Ukrenergo has signed a contract with General Electric Grid Solutions (Germany) and Chornomorenergospetsmontazh LLC for reconstruction of Kharkivska and Zaliutyne 330 kV substations, the company’s press service has reported. According to the press service, the power equipment, cable communication lines, relay protection and automation devices will be replaced at the substations, new gas insulated 330 kV switchgears and hybrid 110 kV switchgears will be installed.
“Kharkivska and Zaliutyne substations play a significant role in providing power supply to the eastern region of Ukraine. With further integration into ENTSO-E, the importance of these substations will increase significantly. That is why the modernization of these facilities must be carried out at the highest technological level in compliance with all reliability and safety requirements presented by ENTSO-E,” Deputy Director for Investment at Ukrenergo Volodymyr Kudrytsky said.
The project entitled “Reconstruction of Substations in the Eastern Part of Ukraine” in 2019-2022, with funding from the German government, in addition to upgrading 330 kV Kharkivska substation and 330 kV Zaliutyne substation also provides for the reconstruction of 750 kV Zaporizhska substation and 750 kV Dniprovska substation.

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GENERAL ELECTRIC SIGNS CONTRACT TO SUPPLY EQUIPMENT FOR PRYMORSKA WIND FARM IN UKRAINE

DTEK Energy Holding has signed a second contract with U.S. General Electric to supply equipment for Prymorska wind farm with a total capacity of 200 MW, the press service of the holding has reported. The first contract to supply equipment for Prymorska wind farm (100 MW) was signed in December 2017. It will be completed at the end of 2018.
The second stage of the 100 MW capacity will be also built in Zaporizhia region. The start of construction is the fourth quarter of 2018.
The land wind power division of GE will supply 26 wind power turbines with a capacity of 3.8 MW each to Prymorska wind plant. This model of a wind turbine demonstrates high performance even in conditions of low wind speed.
The total planned investment in the second stage of Prymorska wind farm will be about EUR150 million, which is comparable with investments in the construction of the first stage.
After the completion of the second stage of Prymorska wind farm, the portfolio of DTEK’s implemented projects in land wind generation will reach 400 MW.
“Our ambitions are to build 1,000 MW of solar and wind power plants by the end of 2019. This is an ambitious goal requiring huge investments by the standards of Ukraine. The construction cost of such a capacity exceeds EUR1 billion,” DTEK CEO Maksym Tymchenko said.
DTEK Renewables is the operating company that manages DTEK’s assets in the renewable energy sphere.

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