– This is our first meeting with you. And it was very important to me that so many people are interested in the activities of our company and people who worry about us, said Oleksiy Vadaturskyy. It was really nice to communicate with you. Thank you for your personal involvement, for your awareness, for your patriotism and the desire to understand any issue. In the future, I plan to communicate with you on a regular basis by organizing similar online press conferences on specific topics. As always, we are open to communication, and you can leave any questions on our official Facebook page. Together with you, we are in fact reforming the economy and improving our society. Thank you for your support and understanding.
During the press conference, which lasted more than two hours, Oleksiy Vadaturskyy answered about 40 completely different (by their format, topic and mood of the authors) questions. Of course, that’s not all the questions we received. Therefore, after his return from Kyiv, Oleksiy Vadaturskyy immediately decided to prepare answers for those whose questions, unfortunately, were not answered on the air. All this information, as well as the text version of the press conference, has been already published on our company’s website. There is a lot of information, so we have divided it into several parts.
This part covers the following issues: 1. Investment plans in Egypt. 2. Navigation revival (the Dnipro River, the Danube River, the Dniester River, the Desna River, the Southern Buh River). 3. Implementation of the investment project in Mykolaiv region, saving roads.
Investment plans in Egypt
 
Maryna
July 2, 2018, 10:18 p.m.
There was information that NIBULON intends to invest USD 2 billion in the development of Egypt’s port infrastructure – construction of grain silos and barges to transport grain along the Nile River, etc.  Would it not turn that NIBULON, one of the few Ukrainian companies that successfully develops, revives shipbuilding, is engaged in dredging of Ukrainian rivers, revives river transportation, and has a significant impact on the Ukrainian economy, shift the focus of its activities to other countries because of open conflict with the leadership of the Ministry of Infrastructure and some people’s deputies?
Oles Yevtieiev
July 2, 2018, 08:33 p.m.
What is the reason for your desire to invest USD 2 billion in the development of Nile River infrastructure for Egypt – construction of river elevators and 20 bargeswith a capacity to transport 2,000 tons? Will the vessels be constructed in Egypt or at your shipbuilding and repair yard in Mykolaiv? How soon will the project start? How long will it last? How will it affect the company’s export opportunities?
Thank you for the questions to all people who are interested in our company’s activities. I can say that our company is so big and so multifaceted that there is no day without any positive events, the events that, first of all, characterize growth and effective work of our company. We did not order publications in the central government and central mass media of Egypt. And it was very nice when the Minister of Supply and Internal Trade (of Egypt) provided such information. And today I can say that this is not just the news that has appeared today, as our Facebook ministers write some news and show it as know-how. This is the news that already has a certain history of cooperation with the Egyptian side.
Our company is a stable partner of Egypt in terms of Ukrainian grain supply. We opened the Egyptian market for Ukrainian corn. In 2003-2004, Ukraine grew no more than 4 million tons of corn. And thanks to the activities of our company, the agricultural sector was reoriented to the most high-yielding crop – corn. Ukraine grows more than 25-30 million tons of corn. And we have become the largest supplier.
Over the past 10-12 years, our company has exported more than 12 million tons of grain and participated in public tenders for the supply of high-quality Ukrainian wheat. Today, it is not just a spontaneous cooperation. We have a fairly substantial market share in Egypt by supplying products to the country and we ensure food security. At the same time, we have an opportunity to compete with other companies in Ukraine. And agricultural producers will have more opportunities to sell their products at a higher price. That is why, as well as in Ukraine, any processing companies or companies in Egypt, both foreign and local ones, know us a supplier of food grain to Egypt. Therefore, we did not go unnoticed.
There is FAO (UN). It provides exchange of best practices for developing countries. Either way, they paid attention to the work of our company for infrastructure development, construction activities of our company, construction of elevator capacities, navigation development, and shipbuilding development in Ukraine. We have cooperated with FAO for three years in order to sign a Memorandum with our company. On December 6, 2017, in Cairo, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed in the presence of many ministers, high officials, leaders of the country.  We will share the best practices acquired by our private company with Egypt. Because Egypt has similar problems as Ukraine had, and unfortunately still has, with products storage and transportation. Therefore, we are the first and only company today from FAO to sign such a memorandum. After that and before that we had a lot of meetings with the leadership of the country, with many Ukrainian ministers. Business delegations started exchange visits to study this issue. I have been to Egypt twice. Delegation of deputy ministers of Egypt visited our company. Coordination councils at the Minister of Industry and Internal Trade are created. And our company also has formed its coordination council. And we have exchanged our experiences.
What do we plan? By the end of September or in October, we will sign a Memorandum with the country’s top leadership on investing in the Egypt’s economy to develop the infrastructure of Egypt.
What does it provide for? It is planned to build self-propelled vessels (not barges) with a capacity of 2,000 tons. This is a series of vessels. We will have an opportunity to be engaged in reconstruction and technical re-equipment of the existing elevator capacities of Egypt. We plan and we will plan to construct capacities to accelerate the grain unloading in Egypt, so there wouldn’t be detention.
And I have to say that Egypt is developing itself very strongly. And I was shocked, in a good sense of the word, by the way the industry develops, the way shipbuilding factories in Egypt work, and how the population of Egypt grows.  And the population there is not decreasing, as it happens in Ukraine. The population grows every year. There are two million people in Cairo. And the (food) safety is very serious for them. Therefore, we will construct vessels, we will construct elevators, and we will reconstruct elevators. We will do everything in order to establish closer relations.
We don’t leave the Ukrainian market. We will establish a separate enterprise. It will have access to credit funds. It will develop itself there in accordance with our development plan. No way will it be at the expense of Ukraine or at the expense of the income the company received in Ukraine.
What are the benefits for Egypt and for our company? Firstly, it will allow agricultural producers to receive higher price and there will be higher competition. This will enable our company to connect our agricultural producers directly with processors and consumers of products in Egypt. Thereby we will eliminate a part of intermediary companies that have existed and still exist in trade between countries. Due to this, the profitability will increase, and there will be the possibility of projects payback. The international financial institutions support us. This work is not going to start today. We informed everyone in advance. We are No. 1 company in the grain market of Ukraine. Either way, in order to stay here, develop it and increase trade volumes, we must be present in the markets of different countries. So, we’ll start with Egypt.
Navigation revival (the Dnipro River, the Danube River, the Dniester River, the Desna River, the Southern Buh River)
 
 

Yurii Mykhailov
July 2, 2018, 07:40 p.m.
1. Unlike the United States, where the main waterway is Mississippi with tributaries and the canals connecting Mississippi and Chicago, and the Mississippi River itself flows practically along the meridian from north to south, the Dnipro River in Ukraine is in the form of semicircle. The Dnipro River also doesn’t have strong tributaries in the middle and lower streams, plus it has a large number of locks. How to solve the problem of agricultural products transportation from the right bank to sea ports? 2. What are the prospects for using the Dniester River to transport agricultural products from Western Ukraine? 3. What are the prospects for using the Danube River to export products to the EU? 4. What should be done to restore river transportation in Ukraine? 5. Last year, in one of your statements you said about your plans to dredge the fairway and restore navigation on the Desna River at the expense of NIBULON. At what stage are these plans now?
It is a very large and extensive block of questions. It is possible to devote all the press conference to such urgent problems of navigation and shipbuilding revival, infrastructure development in general. And I will try to briefly answer all these questions.
Firstly, our company is really capable of dredging rivers. I have to say what a terrible situation today is. During the years of independence in Ukraine, there were 4.5 thousand km of navigable ways and rivers, where vessel of various classes operated. Today there are 1,500 km, that is 3,000 km – we can say that about 100 km of (navigable) rivers disappear a year. At first, I could not think if the statistics was true or false. After analyzing it, I understood that this is, perhaps, a sugar-coated statistics. We are losing more and more navigable ways. For example, we live in Mykolaiv (Mykolaiv region). The Southern Buh River lost its depth from 2.90 m to 1.65 m. As we said, in a few years geese will cross this river. The situation with the Desna River is similar. There were 510 km of navigable river. Today it is non-navigable. There is no vessel operation at all.  But no one, no central body is engaged in solving this problem. Specialists in energetics also aren’t engaged in solving this problem. And vice versa, for example, in our region there is a question of reducing the amount of water from the Southern Buh River in order to complete construction of a hydropower plant at the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant. I had a meeting with the head of the nuclear station and expressed my point of view in this regard. I asked, “Are you a resident of Ukraine?” – “Yes”. “Are you a resident of Mykolaiv region?” – “Yes”. So let’s clear all the tributaries of the Southern Buh River from the very beginning and you will have enough water. We have the similar situation with the Dnipro River. This is a terrible situation. The Dnipro River flushes, gets shallow. So navigation is being lost. First of all, it is necessary to deal with it.
Today, ministers do not do anything in this regard. Why is there no navigation on the rivers today? Because it is economically unprofitable. So today all the fleet that was during the Soviet Union is outside the country. The potential of rivers is unused. Today, the problem of the Dnipro River is a very big problem. We can name such figures: 6.5 million people live directly on the banks of the Dnipro River, 10,000 enterprises are located directly on the Dnipro River, and about 30 million Ukrainians drink water from the Dnipro River. And nobody cares about such an artery, from which the entire Ukraine drinks water. I will even give an example, when we built a facility in Bilenke (Zaporizhzhia region), it has been planned for more than 25 years to construct treatment facilities. They were needed there, as 2,000 cubic meters of sewage per day have been discharged into the Dnipro River without treatment. And when our company came and saw that the entire territory was flooded with sewage. 2,000 cubic meters have been discharged into the Dnipro River. We have embarked on solving this problem. We have completely reconstructed the territory and have constructed treatment facilities so the people could see that the environmental situation will improve. And I have mentioned the number of such enterprises on the Dnipro River. You can see how many treatment facilities there are, the way they work, and whether there are any treatment facilities. Therefore, this is a very big problem, and nobody is engaged in solving it in Ukraine.
As for dredging, we have spent five years in order to receive 47 permits to dredge the Southern Buh River. After that, there were so many various public organizations, critics, and so many people who would not want this work. And we performed dredging of the Southern Buh River at our own expense, revived navigation on the area of 134 km of the Southern Buh River. We informed that we have already transported a million tons of cargoes along the Southern Buh River. Every year we will remove more than 700-800 thousand tons of cargoes from the roads. We revived navigation. The river is not overgrown with bulrush; it stopped to bloom. We endured such pressure and did it.
As for the Desna River dredging, at one of the forums hosted by the Embassy of the Netherlands in Ukraine, with the participation of ministers and business representatives, I made such an initiative saying that I was ready to perform these works on the Desna River. We had a lot of trips, saw the opportunities. And this technical work can be done. But a month later, the minister said that the state would do it at its own expense. In this case, I, as a business person, understand that if both the Ministry and the minister say that they are going to do this at public expense, then why should I spend five years to do these works.
I will give you an example. We constructed a high-capacity dredger capable of crushing rocks at the depth of up to 15 m. We are the only Ukrainian company that has such technical capabilities. Last November, we performed experimental dredging of the Dnipro River at Dniprodzerzhynsk rocks, where once there was an accident with Dnieper Princess carrying German tourists. It was 10 years ago. This month we have started experimental dredging works. What is the result? We were going to be arrested and our machinery was going to be taken away. And this is the reaction to the fact that I wrote a letter to the ministers asking to perform experimental dredging under the auspices of Ukrvodshliakh. After that, two heads of Ukrvidshliakh were fired. We saw that you understand it would be great grief for the company to arrest us and then go to court. We spent a week performing dredging and left Dnipro. We found work in other places.
Now I understand how much effort I have to make, so that I could perform these operations on the Desna River. Firstly, we would perform these operations, if our company is treated well. Secondly, it’s necessary to have a project in order to perform these works. And to have a project, someone should take care of this. And nobody takes care of this in Ukraine. So we need to do design and it will take 5 years to get permission and everything else. All this can be done in case if our company is treated normally, if there is a constructive approach of the state officials to our company.  Enormous funds, billions, are used by our Ministry of Infrastructure to perform dredging works anywhere, but not on the rivers. We do not remove this topic. We know where to build facilities on the Desna River. We know what vessels are capable of operating there. And we are technically ready to do it.  But it requires joint efforts of the authorities, our efforts and efforts of local authorities.
Implementation of the investment project in Mykolaiv region, saving roads
 

I would like to know if NIBULON is going to construct transshipment terminals in Mykolaiv region in the near time. Where?  Can you tell me in more detail how you personally see the way of improving the condition of roads in Mykolaiv region?
Thank you native Mykolaiv citizens! Everyone knows that we construct our facilities in other regions. In our (Mykolaiv region) there were plans to build our facility as well. I am a citizen of Mykolaiv, a patriot of Mykolaiv and I for the fact that no truck enters Mykolaiv, especially on hot summer days. And this is really an environmental tragedy for Mykolaiv during the harvesting campaign. We had a few proposals. When (in 2016) the Minister of Infrastructure came to us and asked me to even sign an autograph, he was very impressed with the way we have been working on the development of inland waterways. He invited me. And I came with Mykolaiv mayor in order to meet with him. I showed him a project, how to do the work so that the trucks would not enter the city, and traveled around the city, and to make a ferry crossing. We are ready. These are two real impetuses for the economy of Mykolaiv: 1) to load shipyards for several years; 2) provide jobs for builders; 3) local authorities could receive additional revenues from such a ferry crossing; 4) to remove any environmental problems in Mykolaiv connected with road transport. We offered both the head of the Regional State Administration and the city mayor to construct a facility, both on the right and on the left side of the Southern Buh River, in order to exclude road transport from Mykolaiv and Nova Odesa districts from entering Mykolaiv. Unfortunately, these developments have remained unnoticed, because we have a lot of different problems, and someone, some kind of manager, must tackle these problems. I hope we will accomplish these plans. And then you can remove this problem.
As for ruined roads, our city is a transit one. And the only way that connects Odessa and Mykolaiv is Varvarivka bridge. More than 3,000 trucks a day pass thought it. It is terrible. This bridge is unsafe, and it can be closed at any time. These precisely ideas that we have proposed are urgent, but local authorities should deal with it. Deputies should deal with it, not hype themselves or fight on the forthcoming elections to gain points. They should deal with it in order to solve it. We voiced it. NIBULON is ready to do this work, but I understand that the authorities will do everything to prevent it from happening. As NIBULON took up this work. We gave ideas. Authorities, do go forward. Business, go forward. Investments, go forward. Go and agitate investors. There is a good deal. Today it can be done for the city, for Ukraine, for everyone. But one must deal with it. Because I would not want to be a guilty person, a guilty company for the fact it is not being built. We shared our idea, showed it. We will tell and we will help. If it is possible to participate in this plan, we will participate on equal rights. But again, this problem will be solved for Mykolaiv. The shipbuilding yards will be loaded. Road transport will be removed from the roads, and the environmental situation will improve.
We are accused of the fact that our road transport ruins all roads in Ukraine. I want to answer this way: fear makes the wolf bigger than he is. We are not so big company to break all the roads. Our company has less than 100 trucks. Ukraine has half a million of trucks. Maybe our fault is that we write NIBULON (logo) on our new trucks. And almost 30 years NIBULON has been working, every resident of Mykolaiv knows NIBULON. In order to remember Dreyfus, Bunge, Cofco and other companies I respect, people simply do not understand. Sometimes names on trucks are written in a foreign language; people just do not understand. But everybody knows NIBULON. Because Vadaturskyy is in the region and NIBULON is in the region as well. But it is beneficial to raise the question of breaking up roads in order to discredit us. This is exactly what they use. We are the only company that is interested in removing grain flows from the highways. And we set ourselves the goal that we will unload the roads in a year. Yesterday, we transported 2.5 million tons of cargoes. In a year we will transport 4 million tons. And we are interested in not transporting grain along the highways. And I’m sure that the same people who want to discredit us, they will say that NIBULON lobbied for a law and forbade the movement on the highways, and it is guilty because drivers are unemployed. We support the idea of redirecting flows and eliminating traffic routes of 500-600 km. Today I even will show it on a slide. I’m showing an example of Zaporizhzia region. All flows from Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions to Mykolaiv were of 500-600 km. With the support of the Zaporizhzia Regional State Administration and Konstiantyn Bryl personally, with the support of the agricultural sector of the Zaporizhzhia region, we did everything to prevent trucks moving to Mykolaiv and Odesa from entering Kherson region with commodities from Zaporizhzhia region. We have built three (river) facilities and we will construct two more ones in Marianske (Dnipropetrovsk region) and in Ternivka (Zaporizhzhya region). We have done everything for local transportation of cargoes of 80-100 km, where there will be no need to use large trucks. Medium duty trucks will be enough to do it. It is an economy of up to UAH 500 per one ton for the agrarian sector. It is an additional income. If 4 million tons are transported, the state budget will save more than 3.6 billion; savings from the repair of these roads. That will be the effect.
For those who always say that our trucks are breaking the highways. I have statistics: about 100 of our trucks have passed through weighing complexes, unexpected inspections. And there has never been excess weight in our trucks. All our partners know that our company, when it performs services, loads goods as required in accordance with the norms established by the legislation. Therefore, when someone needs to write negative information about the company, then this topic is just raised.
Please show slide No. 2.  That’s how cargoes are moving in Ukraine. Everything moves to the ports of Big Odesa. It is road and rail transport. They don’t notice rivers or anything else. Therefore, the entire flow of road transport and rail transport moves to the ports of Big Odesa.
We can see the slide No. 3. This is an ideal situation. Firstly, it is necessary to construct facilities on the Dnipro River. Secondly, it is necessary to revive the industry on the Dnipro River and those flows along the Dnipro River, so the Dnipro River is loaded and to remove cargo transportation by road transport.