The State Property Fund of Ukraine has returned the guarantee participation fee to Russia`s Azot-Service Ltd., which had bid in a tender for the acquisition of a 99.52% stake in the Odesa Pre-Port Plant(OPZ).

The State Property Fund press-service has disclosed this to UNIAN on Monday.

The participation fee is returned after State Property Fund chief Valentyna Semeniuk-Samsonenko signed a resolution canceling the tender, the State Property Fund press-service said.

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As UNIAN reported earlier, the tender on the sale of the 99.52% Odessa Pre-Port Plant stake was announced on February 20. The starting price was set at 3 billion.

In mid-April, President Viktor Yushchenko forbade the government to sell OPZ, arguing that it was not feasible to sell the plant’s ammonia transshipment complex, which is the terminus of the Togliatti-Odesa ammonia pipeline.

On April 25, Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko announced that the Okryzhny administrative court in Kyiv had struck down the presidential decree concerning OPZ. The OPZ privatization was restarted almost immediately.

On the same day, Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko installed Andriy Portnov as new chief of the State Property Fund of Ukraine. This time the Prosecutor-General’s Office intervened, canceling Semeniuk’s suspension from SPFU head post by Tymoshenko. Speaking later at a talk-show on Inter TV, Semeniuk said that she would not go until parliament replaced her.