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that we will launch this year will not be finished before the end of the year. We will transfer some of the facilities to 2019," Interfax quoted him as saying.
The same day, the cabinet in Kyiv approved a list of large enterprises for privatisation in 2018, which includes 26 state-owned enterprises, specifically, five regional electricity supply companies, Centrenergo, Odesa Port Plant (OPP), Turboatom, Zaporizhia Titanium and Magnesium Combine, United Mining-Chemical Company and Sumykhimprom.
"We are selling them to make investments and enterprises work efficiently. We need to attract qualified advisers to privatise large enterprises," Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman told a government meeting the same day. "We will get it over with the shadow privatisation in Ukraine by this decision."
However, SPF's Trubarov described OPP as "the most problematic" asset and urged that the new attempt to sell it is not rushed because of the unsolved debt problem. "The most important problem is its debts, which are fixed by the court decision," he added. "Unfortunately, at the moment we are just approaching the decision together with our international advisors to the issue related to the possibility of debt restructuring."
The previous and current governments have promoted OPP as the most attractive asset it has on the sales list but Trubarov has confirmed what many analysts believe: with its debt load OPP is unsellable.
Recently, Kyiv said that the starting price in the privatisation of OPP will be cut to $54mn , which is 10-times lower than the price set three years ago. However, experts still doubt the success of the company's privatisation.
Potential buyers must reckon with repaying $251mn in debt to Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash's Ostchem company, $32mn to banks and traders for previously supplied natural gas, and invest at least another $100mn in restarting the plant's operations, which will demand further large volumes of gas.
Another reason for the failure of the privatisation is the conflict with the Nortima company, controlled by oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. Nortima previously threatened to block the OPP privatisation, saying any sale deal would be regarded as a purchase of stolen assets following a 2009 tender in which it outbid two rivals with an offer of $600mn at the exchange rate at the time.
Over the past year, the plant has repeatedly suspended its ammonia and carbide production facilities, specifically, due to lack of natural gas supplies.
Meanwhile, Kyiv-based brokerage Concorde Capital believes that the Ukrainian government is going to postpone the sale of all assets even further than this autumn - for late 2018. "This is clearly not the best time to offer Ukrainian assets for sale, as it will be very close to presidential elections scheduled for March," Concorde's Alexander Paraschiy wrote in a research note on May 11. "Therefore, we doubt Ukraine will be able to sell its large assets this year."
In 2017, the Ukrainian authorities obtained UAH3.244bn ($123mn) from the privatisation of state-owned assets. Kyiv restarted its privatisation drive in August, when the SPF sold blocking stakes in several power companies to System Capital Management (SCM) Group controlled by Ukraine's richest
8 UKRAINE Country Report June 2018 www.intellinews.com