Page 63 - UKRRptJul21

The country’s political instability and lack of coherent national energy policy make the situation worse, according to GlobalData. While the government has launched a wide-ranging reform of the energy market, so far it has failed to improve the market conditions and remains highly monopolistic and overregulated.
Vyakaranam adds: “Not only has the country’s power market seen turmoil following regulations in 2019 aimed to liberalise the market, it is also burdened with massive debt. A huge part of the recent debt accumulation reflects non-payment of the feed-in tariff [FiT] to renewable energy producers.”
9.1.10 Renewables sector news
This year, renewables will account for 70% of total investments worldwide in electricity, the International Energy Agency says in a new report. Renewables, largely wind and solar, will get $530bn, the Agency says in the 64-page study. This year, for the sixth year in a row, investment in renewables will exceed investment in oil and gas. For European investors, Ukraine is attractive because of untapped wind potential and because sites for onshore wind turbine towers are increasingly hard to find, largely due to population densities.
Ukraine’s erratic treatment of wind and solar producers threatens the EU’s choice of Ukraine as a major hydrogen producer, Deitz said. “We can replace Russian gas in the EU with Ukrainian molecules,” he said. “But to do that, we need stability -- hydrogen investments will take 10 to 15 years.” Despite this ongoing $150mn investment, Deitz said he has frozen four wind projects totalling 260 MW. “The biggest problem is that we don’t see stability,” said Deitz, an American with over 20 years experience investing in Ukraine. “The rules seem to change every day.” He cited the government’s failure to live up to last summer’s payment schedule to wind and solar producers, a debt that approaches $1bn. Then, after lowering power rates and then failing to pay the lowered rates, some Rada members want to impost an excise tax on renewable energy.
9.1.11 Metallurgy & mining sector news
Ukraine plans to auction Europe's largest titanium and zirconium miner on Aug. 31, Dmytro Sennychenko writes on Facebook. With a starting price of $137mn for United Mining and Chemical Company, the sale will be the first large privatization since the 2014 Revolution of Dignity. One of the world’s top 10 miners of titanium and zirconium ores, the company had these global market shares last year: rutile – 6.2%; ilmenite - 2.3%, zirconium – 1.4%. The company produces 350,000 tons of concentrates and exports to 35 countries.
Four titanium, three hydrocarbon and two ore licenses were revoked on June 24 by the National Security and defence Council, council secretary Oleksiy Danilov told reporters. Held for as long as four years, the licenses were never used. Danilov believes companies sat on the licenses to prevent rivals from producing. The Council is auditing all mining licenses issued since 1994. By Sept. 1, all 3,000 mining licenses are to be posted on the government’s Geoinformation Portal.
63 UKRAINE Country Report July 2021 www.intellinews.com