Rinat Akhmetov's holding company DTEK has a new competitor in the energy export market: a subsidiary of Energy Resources of Ukraine, whose partner will be GDF SUEZ, the largest European energy company.
Energosvit Plus, a subsidiary of the foreign-invested company Energy Resources of Ukraine (managing director – Andriy Favorov, former commercial director of Rinat Akhmetov's DTEK), together with GDF SUEZ, Europe's largest energy company, will participate in an auction for access to the capacity of Ukraine's interstate power grids for electricity exports to Europe.
In accordance with legal requirements, Energosvit Plus has provided all necessary permits and guarantees for the fulfillment of its obligations should it win the tender. GDF SUEZ, a major European energy company, will act as the company's exclusive electricity buyer and partner in Ukraine.
"The ERU Group welcomes the opportunity to collaborate with the leading energy company GDF SUEZ in the annual auctions for access to electricity export capacity. We hope that our joint participation in this auction is just the first step in a long-term and successful collaboration between our companies in the Ukrainian energy sector on projects related to electricity exports, coal imports, and a number of other projects," notes Andriy Favorov, Director of Energy Resources of Ukraine.
"The sale of Ukrainian kWh on European electricity markets is the next step in Ukraine's deeper technical, economic, and energy integration into the European Energy Community. In recent years, Ukraine has established itself as a reliable supplier of electricity to Europe, and it is now crucial to maintain and enhance this. Therefore, the attraction of major international players to the Ukrainian electricity market today could signal the beginning of stabilization in the industry and become the foundation for its sustainable development in the future," concluded Andriy Favorov.
As reported, five companies have submitted bids to participate in the 2015 auction for access to Ukraine's interstate power grid capacity for electricity exports, scheduled for December 18. Rinat Akhmetov's DTEK Vostokenergo LLC and DTEK Trading LLC, Igor Gumenyuk's Donbassenergo PJSC, Andrey Favorov and Elena Semykina's Energosvit Plus Private Enterprise (Kharkiv), and TEK LLC (Kyiv) intend to participate.
De facto, the only exporters of Ukrainian electricity over the past three years have been entities that are part of Rinat Akhmetov's DTEK holding company—Vostokenergo and Power Trade. Since 2011, these companies have regularly received exclusive rights to transport electricity abroad by purchasing export capacity from NEC Ukrenergo (under national law, this entity is the operator of all electric transmission networks in Ukraine).
Before Akhmetov, the state-owned Ukrinterenergo de jure handled the exclusive export of domestic electricity. However, in reality, the operations were carried out by a private company, Korlea Invest, founded by businessman Vasyl Bechvarzh (Danyliv). Administrative support for Danyliv's business was attributed at the time to Vitaliy Gaiduk , who in 2009 headed the Prime Minister's advisory group and had not yet sold his stake in ISD Corporation to a pool of Russian investors led by former Evraz co-owner Alexander Katunin.
During that period, Korlea Invest, together with Ukrinterenergo, founded Ukrenergy Holding in Switzerland, which sold Ukrainian electricity to Western exchanges. (A similar company in the same country, DTEK Trading SA, was also established this summer by Akhmetov's holding company.) And the business was quite profitable. In its last year of energy export operations—2011—Ukrinterenergo's revenue, according to the company's own reporting data, amounted to UAH 1,2 billion (approximately $150 million), and its profit was UAH 108 million.
Since the end of 2011, Ukrinterenergo has withdrawn from electricity exports, handing the baton to DTEK. Experts note that the former company was forced to "step aside" and decide "it was no longer possible to continue participating in export auctions."
Despite the holding's "antitrust" intentions, the situation hadn't changed significantly by 2014. Of the four companies participating in the annual auction for power grid allocations, only DTEK Vostokenergo and DTEK Trading actually participated. Donbassenergo, over 60% of whose shares were acquired by businessman Igor Gumenyuk's Energoinvest Holding in August 2013, was awarded 100 MW of power in the Moldovan direction. Ukrinterenergo, meanwhile, played a minor role in the auction; at the time, it was difficult to explain its passivity.
Based on materials from: "Delo"
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