EVENT

Gas extraction in Black and Azov seas to double by 2015

In 2011 the Chornomornaftogaz SJSC is planning to maintain the annual extraction of natural gas at the level above one billion cubic meters; by 2015 it wants to increase it by 1.8 times, up to 1.87 billion cubic meters. According to the company’s development strategy until 2015, extraction growth is planned through intensifying the production of working deposits and operationalizing new ones — in Odesa and Bezimenne. The first gas from Odesa is planned to be retrieved already next year, and when both deposits are fully settled and put to the designed capacity, their annual extraction will exceed one billion cubic meters of gas. Other amounts of natural gas will be extracted from the already existing deposits in the shelf of Black and Azov seas.

SKM and SMART to create agrarian holding

HarvEast group was established on the basis of the assets of the agra­rian Illich Plant. SKM and Smart-Holding will be its shareholders. The eponymous company HarvEast was created by the shareholders to manage the holding. “We believe in the potential of the Ukrainian agrarian sector and consider this business direction as being strategic for SKM. We are ready to invest in its long term growth and work methodically on creating a strong, efficient and competitive agrarian company. I am convinced that it will boost SKM’s growth and the development of the Ukrainian agrarian sector in general,” Oleh Popov, CEO of SKM, said. The agrarian assets of the Illich Mariupol Metallurgical Plant (IMMP) will be transferred to the HarvEast holding management. These include 200,000 hectares of arable land, cattle, pig farms and other profile assets (mixed fodder and seed crop production), and they are located in the Cherkasy and Zhytomyr regions and in Crimea. According to Dmytro Skorniakov, acting CEO of the holding, the development strategy of the holding and its planned investment volume will be presented in 2012. “But now we can say that we are interested in directions in which we have competitive advantages today. For example, we plan to develop crop production and milk stock raising as the current agrarian asset configuration of the IMMP is an excellent platform for it,” he said. The final holding establishment (transfer of agrarian assets from the Metinvest structure, confirmation of the development strategy and team formation) will be completed in 2012.