Partners news Thursday, April 29 Officially, there have been 2 million cases of coronavirus in Ukraine over the last year. However, in a UNICEF survey of 2,027 Ukrainian adults interviewed by cell phone in April, 22% of respondents said they had fallen sick with coronavirus. If this percentage is applied to Ukraine’s adul...
Partners news Thursday, April 29 The opening comes as Kyiv still records about 1,000 new coronavirus cases a day, Mayor Klitschko reports. Among the reported cases, 40% are men and 60% are women. On a national scale, 9,590 new cases were reported yesterday, half the level of the peaks in early April.
Partners news Thursday, April 29 Kyiv lifts its strict lockdown Saturday, opening the Metro to all riders, allowing indoor restaurant dining, and opening shopping centers, gyms and open-air markets. The opening comes in time for Orthodox Easter, which is celebrated on Sunda...
Partners news Thursday, April 29 In a different kind of complaint about a Ukrainian state company Supervisory Board, Richard Deitz, President of London-based VR Capital Group, charges that the Ukrzaliznytsia board has failed to act decisively to negotiate a deal for debt obligations VR bought two years ago from Prom...
Partners news Thursday, April 29 Russia’s recent military buildup on Ukraine’s eastern border has re-focused Washington’s attention on the potential perils of the Nord Stream 2 Russia-Germany Baltic sea gas line, Diane Francis writes in a new Atlantic Council blog. Noting that Russia hopes to finish the 1,230 km project this summer, this veteran Ukraine watcher warns that commissioning “would also remove a maj...
Partners news Thursday, April 29 PricewaterhouseCoopers was won the contract, which is valued close to $2 million to audit the Naftogaz Group’s financial statements for 2021 and 2022 , the state company has reported. The Cabinet of Ministers made the choice after reviewing results of a ProZorro competition. In addition to auditing the accounts of nearly 30 companies of the Group, ...
Partners news Thursday, April 29 Naftogaz Group has cut its capital expenditures by 44.5% last year, to $54 million, from $99 million. The biggest area, exploration and production, fell by 26%, to $39 million. Oil and gas production by Naftogaz, the nation’s largest producer, has been stagnant for the last several y...
Partners news Thursday, April 29 Kobolyev made no public comment yesterday about his dramatic fall. Vitrenko, his former deputy, said the CEO switch is a “logical” response to “inefficient management of Naftogaz Ukrainy.” “The state must be an active owner,” he said in an interview last night with I...
Partners news Thursday, April 29 “Dismissed. Reappointed. Andriy gone. $2bn cash reserves in company,” one foreign member of the Supervisory Board emailed the UBN last night. “Prospect of developing serious new gas basin in Black Sea and others and were going to raise a bond issue next week – kil...
Partners news Thursday, April 29 The dismissal of Kobolyev “is legal manipulation” and “demonstrates a return to practice manual management of state enterprises,” reads a defiant statement posted by the company’s outgoing management on the Naftogaz Group Facebook page. The change at the top comes as Naftogaz was planning to issue a Eurobond. In this light, the ...
Partners news Thursday, April 29 Objections swirl over the legal maneuver used to bypass the Board and fire an executive who was one year into a four-year contract. “This violates the charter of Naftogaz and violates our obligations, in particular, to the IMF to ensure the independence of Naftogaz,” said Inna Sovsun, a Rada Energy Committee member from the ...
Partners news Thursday, April 29 Defenders of Kobolyev noted that despite last year’s loss, the company paid $5 billion in taxes – 17% of Ukraine’s tax receipts. Kobolyev leaves Naftogaz with $2 billion in cash on hand, a war chest to buy gas for the winter.
Partners news Thursday, April 29 This afternoon, the Rada is to meet to vote on the candidacy of Herman Halushchenko for the post of Energy Minister. Supported by the Rada Energy Committee, Halushchenko, is Vice President of Energoatom, the state company that runs Ukraine’s four nuclear power plants. Nuclear supplies half of Ukraine’s electricity....
Partners news Thursday, April 29 To fire Kobolyev, the Cabinet of Ministers suspended the Supervisory Board for two days, the body charged with personnel decisions. Next Wednesday, a search is to start for new Board members. Vitrenko, the former number two at Naftogaz, has won a 1-year contract. Since December, he has se...
Partners news Thursday, April 29 Yuriy Vitrenko starts work today as the new CEO of Naftogaz, reports the government portal. Yesterday, the Cabinet of Ministers fired Andriy Kobolyev, a 20-year company veteran, who had held the CEO post since March 2014. Kobolyev is credited with cutting corruption, but criticized for faili...
Partners news Friday, April 30 Passenger traffic was down by one third during the first quarter, compared to January-March of 2020, the State Statistics Service reports. The number of rides taken by passengers was down 30.5%, to 624 million. The number of passenger kilometers was down 35%, to 12.... #passingertraffic
Partners news Friday, April 30 Lviv has the highest average salary in Ukraine, the hryvnia equivalent of $1,130 a month, according to a survey of Ukraine’s largest cities by grc.ua, a personnel portal. Lviv presumably edged out Kyiv, the traditional leader, due to the high conce... #LvivSalary #SalaryUkraine
Partners news Friday, April 30 More than 300,000 Russian soldiers, nearly one-third of the nation’s 1 million member military, took part in exercises near Ukraine this month , Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian military’s General Staff, said in a public briefing yesterday. He said drills involved 35,000 combat vehicles, 900 aircraft and 180 navy ships. Previous e... #RussianArmyatUkraineBorder #RussianMilitary
EnergyPartners news Friday, April 30 With Russia’s Rosneft cutting diesel supplies to Ukraine, traders plan to increase diesel imports in May from Belarus, Lithuania, Hungary and Turkey, Ukraine’s Economy Ministry reports after meeting with “key stakeholders of the oil and gas market.” Yesterday, two companies won tenders to supply diesel to Ukrzaliznytsia. In addition to using diesel... #DieselforUkraine #dieselsupply #Rosneft
Investments Friday, April 30 Australia’s Volt Resources Limited is paying $7.6 million to buy control of Ukraine’s Zavalivsky Graphite LLC, one of the 10 largest producers of natural graphite in the world. Volt says it is buying 70% of the company to become a producer of graphite for li-ion batteries. With a production capacity of 30,000 tons a year, Zavalivsky Graphite has been mining the deposit in Ki... #naturalgraphite #ZavalivskyGraphite