Risoil Group as the newly-fledged concessionaire of the state enterprise (SE) Kherson Sea Trade Port (KSTP) plans to conduct large-scale modernisation of the asset and acquire tonnage of its own. This was declared by Director of Risoil S.A. Shota Khajishvili at a panel discussion during the international conference Grain Ukraine held in Odessa on 10-11 July.
“We project to demolish all the old hackneyed junk like warehouses and barns built by Romanian or Russian Imperial administrations. We’d like to turn the port into a small, compressed and convenient facility for the region and the river, the one to deliver a big enough gross product and enable to pay taxes and wages”, said Mr Khajishvili.
The concessionaire company also intends to create the fleet of its own placing orders at the domestic shipbuilding facilities.
“I used to think that everybody should be allowed to enter the river and therefore turn it into a comfy thoroughfare as soon as possible. But as of today I’ve encountered the situations where lots of barges built back in 1970 are hauled into the country – it is in fact some scrap incapable of sailing. Moreover, I see shipbuilding capacities staying idle, those having formerly built real tonnage though today lacking even barge construction orders which are very easy to perform. As for the barges, we can build very quickly. It is better to load the shipbuilding capacities and construct. It is expensive today, but if we gain the mass shipbuilding – it would go cheaper”, noted Mr Khajishvili.
The Kherson concession tender was won by LLC Risol Kherson owned by Georgian Industrial Group (60%) and Risoil S.A., Switzerland (40%), for the 30 years term. The concession agreement was signed on 26 June 2020. The winner undertakes to invest almost 300M UAH, pay the fixed concession fee of 12M UAH, and the annual variable fees at 7%, providing also not less than 1.36M t of handling by 2030, 18M UAH to be invested in the local infrastructure.
https:/ports.ua/my-hotim-sdelat-hersonskij-port-kompaktnym-i-udobnym-shota-hadzhishvili/