Odesa Port Plant / yuzhny.in.ua
Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk expects that sale of Odesa Port Plant (OPP) will generate more than $1 billion in revenues for the state, but he does not rule out the final price of the deal will be determined by the market.
Such statement Yatsenyuk made when speaking at a meeting of the Financial Stability Council.
"Our task is to decrease budget expenditures in 2016. It is necessary to continue reforming public administration and public sector - Yatsenyuk said. - The launch of privatization, which the parliament has been blocking for about a year now, will be additional sources of revenues to the budget. We have decided to leave strategic enterprises in state ownership, the rest should be sold at transparent auctions, envisaging benefit packages for employees and investments in production capacities. And they [state assets] should not be sold to Ukrainian oligarchs, as it was the case 20 years ago."
According to Yatsenyuk, changes to the rules of OPP privatization have been made in order to improve the privatization process.
"Together with our Western partners we decided to change the privatization rules of OPP. Under other circumstances, one of the oligarchs would become the owner of the plant. But the sale must be transparent at a fair price. And we estimate that 5% [share stake] is worth about $100 million. But the market will determine the price for OPP and other privatization targets," the head of government said.
As earlier reported, sale of Odesa Port Plant was previously scheduled for November-December this year, but was postponed to January-February 2016 due to some objective reasons, according to Chairman of Ukraine's State Property Fund Ihor Bilous. He emphasized that a main reason for postponing the auction was the adoption by the parliament of the law abolishing a compulsory sale of 5% stake in the enterprise, as well as the execution of all procedures for holding the auction and searching for a privatization adviser.
Odesa Port Plant (city of Yuzhny, Odesa region) is Ukraine's second largest ammonia and carbamide producer, and the third largest producer of nitrogen fertilizers. The company also handles chemical products shipped from the CIS countries for further export. The company holds a monopoly position in the national market of specialized services for acceptance, cooling and transshipment of ammonia.
In January-June of this year, OPP received a net profit of UAH 151.953 million, against a net loss of UAH 116.806 in the same period last year.