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100% total share - in operator of the nation's gas transit system (GTS), the Ukrainian News agency reported on September 10. In the letter, Naftogaz suggests that Groysman place the question of the possible sale before a meeting of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council. Naftogaz estimated the 49% stake can be sold at $7bn to a recognized international investor, and such an investment will serve as a guarantee for preserving future revenue from gas transit services (recall, the current gas transit contract between Naftogaz and Gazprom expires in end-2019). A possible sale of a stake in the GTS operator will secure high FDI inflow and improve the chances that Ukraine’s export proceeds from gas transit services won’t plummet after 2020. Therefore, such a sale can serve as solid support for the Ukrainian currency in the mid-term. So far, it’s hard to estimate whether and when such a deal can happen.
Ukraine's state-owned natural gas monopoly Naftogaz is going to increase the price of natural gas for industrial consumers on prepayment terms by 9.7% month-on-month to UAH13,439 ($479) per 1,000 cubic meters (with VAT) in October. The price for other groups of consumers will grow by 9.4% m/m to UAH14,586 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas (with VAT) in October. These prices will be in effect for consumers if they buy more than 50,000 cubic meters of gas per month and if they have no debts owed to the company, as well as for 100% subsidiaries of Naftogaz, according to Interfax news agency. Meanwhile, Kyiv is still should secure an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over the gradual increase of the price of gas for households to the level of the imported price. The increase of the gas price for households is a crucial condition for the latest $2bn tranche due from the IMF and part of its $17.5bn package agreed with Kyiv in 2015 alongside the adoption of the anti-corruption court legislation, and the implementation of measures to ensure that the 2018 budget deficit will not exceed the planned level. In 2015, Ukraine cancelled state regulation for gas prices for all categories of consumers, except for the population and heating companies for the needs of the population. Since that time, Naftogaz has been supplying gas to industrial consumers, budget organisations and other business entities on market terms.
9.2.3 Transport corporate news
In a major house cleaning, Ukrzaliznytsia plans to sell for scrap one third of its open freight cars – about 16,000 wagons, Andrei Ryazantsev, the state railroad’s finance director, tells reporters in Kyiv. This sale of about 400,000 tons of steel could yield $50mn. The money is to pay for new cars and locomotives. In an analysis of the railroad’s numbers, Dragon Capital concludes that the railroad may actually sell 23,000 cars, about one half of its open car fleet. Ryazantsev said the first lot of cars up for public auction are "closer to the state of scrap than to the state of cars.”
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is set to divest the Kuznia na Rybalskomu shipyard in Kyiv, controlled by the Prime Assets Capital fund, which manages his assets, according to Poroshenko's spokesman Sviatoslav Tseholko. "The fund Prime Assets Capital [...] has informed that it has arrived at a framework agreement on the sale of the Kuznia na Rybalskomu shipyard to a national buyer," Tsegolko wrote on his official Facebook page. The agreement will be inked if the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine greenlights the deal. Prime Assets Capital controlled a 82.5% stake in the shipyard, while
54 UKRAINE Country Report October 2018 www.intellinews.com