Public Stevedores Olvia and Kherson Concession Feasibility Study Presented

20 Сен

On Wednesday 19 September 2018 in Kyiv International Finance Corporation (IFC) provided a conference for potential bidders of the forthcoming tenders to select a concessionaire of the state-owned stevedoring companies in the ports Olvia and Kherson. To examine the projects’ feasibility study (FS) representatives of above 25 Ukrainian and overseas companies (the USA, China, France, Switzerland, the UK, Japan, Turkey, Qatar, and Korea) came to Kyiv.
The FS of these concession pilot projects had been developed by the consortium of international consultants sponsored by EBRD and IFC. The conference opening was attended by Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Volodymyr Omelian, Head of Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority (USPA) Raivis Veckagans, IFC Regional Manager on Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova Jason Brett Pellmar, and Head of Infrastructure – Associate Director, EBRD Ukraine, Mark Magaletsky.
“The business shows interest towards the public stevedoring companies’ concession projects in the ports Olvia and Kherson. After the projects’ FS presentation we are going to hold over 10 individual meetings with potential investors where we’ll discuss possibilities of their participation in the concession tenders”, said Raivis Veckagans. Moreover, he added, the pilot projects in Olvia and Kherson are only the first step of the state-owned stevedoring companies transformation by way of the public-private partnership (PPP). Further on, basing on the experience of these first concession tenders, the state and investors would be enabled to more efficiently interact in the course of the similar ventures realisation in the ports Chornomorsk and Yuzhny.
The professional interest of the business towards the public stevedores’ concession projects for Olvia and Kherson was witnessed by the conference participants list as well. Mainly they were port operators, cargo owners and international traders. All of them either possess great experiences in the port sector of Ukraine, or are concerned in establishing or developing their own handling capacities in Ukrainian ports.
Some representatives of foreign companies had managed even before the conference to get acquainted with the public stevedores’ activities in the ports of Olvia and Kherson. “We have just returned from Kherson and Mykolaiv, observed the work of stevedores in these ports, so today’s concession FS presentation came twice as interesting for us. The projects, by all means, deserve the attention. But, prior to taking further decisions, we have to learn the conditions in detail and analyse them with account of the Ukrainian market peculiarities”, commented on the conference outcomes Nectar Group (the UK) delegates.
On their turn, the participants from Turkish CEYGROUP, the port Samsun operators, consider the ports Olvia and Kherson concession projects in the context of expanding their own business and building up an integral logistic chain from Ukrainian agriproducts sellers to the final consumers – the Turkish group clientele. “We are already handling agricultural cargoes from Ukraine nowadays. The possibility of developing our own handling in these ports would bring us closer to the producers, and may enable us to optimise the logistics. Some FS conditions, e.g. the personnel number, as comparing to the international benchmarks, require additional consultations. However, the projects on the whole are interesting”.
Individual negotiations between officials of Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine, IFC, EBRD, USPA, and investors are to go on till the end of the week.
http://tbu.com.ua/news/sostoialas_prezentatsiia_teo_kontsessii_gosstividornyh_kompanii_olviia_i_herson_.html