This event is of historical significance not only for Mykolaiv region, but for the whole Ukraine as well. The potential of the Southern Buh River, the largest water artery in the south of Ukraine and the second largest river in Ukraine, is of great importance for the country’s economy. The fact that we independently, without state support, revived navigation on this river is a real example of what should be done to revive Ukrainian waterways as transport arteries.
Statistics and history
Every year the length of navigable ways is reduced by 100 km. The rivers disappear from the navigable map of Ukraine. As a result, navigable ways reduced from about 4,000 km to 1,500 km during the years of Ukraine’s independence. Why doesn’t anyone raise the alarm? Why doesn’t anyone deal with this problem? Because our officials, primarily in the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine, “revive” rivers only during their public speeches and on Facebook; but in fact they do nothing. There are a lot of facts to prove this, but at first a bit of history…
In the 80’s and in the early 90’s, million tons of sand, stone, crushed stone and no more than 50,000 tons of grain were transported along the Southern Buh River every year. The older inhabitants of Mykolaiv region still remember that period. After 25 years of decay of this river, one could hardly believe that NIBULON will revive navigation on its own and will transport 500,000 tons of grain along the Southern Buh River in one year. But it’s a fact. In one year our company managed to surpass the highest records of the Soviet period by 10 times, and in a year we will surpass them by 20 times.
It would be even harder to believe if everyone knew what difficulties we had to overcome, what a huge amount of investments to attract to turn planned figure into real ones. And it was necessary to do a lot…
Real deeds
During 25 years of Ukraine’s independence, the depth of Southern Buh River has reduced from 2.9 m to 1.65 m. In our company it was even jokingly said that in 10 years geese would cross the Southern Buh River. But we had a clear understanding that we could not admit such a catastrophe, although the state is obliged to maintain the declared depths.
Dredging was the first step towards solving this problem. Do you think if there is enough money then the problem is solved? No. We spent five years in order to overcome bureaucratic obstacles to receive permits. There were 47 permits. Public hearings were held. Each official, ranging from village councils and regional administrations to central authorities, carefully checked our documents. The supervisory bodies also carefully monitored this process.  In short, the officials didn’t spare us their precious time.
Having passed several circles of bureaucratic hell, we got to work and performed the first stage of dredging at our own expense and without the state support. We dredged it to 2 m on the area from Voznesensk to Mykolaiv. As a result, 134 km of the Southern Buh River became navigable. On August 24, 2016, for the first time in twenty-five years a cargo fleet arrived in Voznesensk. The last time inhabitants saw a cargo fleet near Voznesensk was in 1991. At first our vessels were unusual for people of the surrounding villages, but they got used to our vessels in a short time; they became an integral part of their everyday landscape.
We understood that 2-meter depth wasn’t enough to develop passenger transportation along with cargo transportation on the Southern Buh River. On December 30, 2017, we began the next stage of dredging operations on this water artery; we finished it on April 4, 2018. The company managed to increase the guaranteed depth on the area Nova Odesa – Myolaiv from 2 m to 2.5 m, thereby enabling us to use vessels with more cargo capacity on the Southern Buh River and reducing the number of cargo trips. This time the operations were performed by unique Mykolaivets self-propelled dredger that was constructed at NIBULON shipbuilding and repair yard to deepen the Dnipro River, the Southern Buh River, as well as water areas of ports and terminals.
We spent considerable funds to dredge the Southern Buh River and restore navigation. However, it is not even about that. The fact is that the leading countries of the world take care of dredging and inland waterways maintenance. There wasn’t financial or other support from the state in our case. On the contrary, the officials created a lot of obstacles to perform these operations
The next step of our complex program was the construction of two new facilities worth almost USD 40 million.  The state officials paid deliberate attention to this and created additional obstacles. It was about allocation of land, receiving permits for construction and so on.  We are a strong company. Therefore, we were able to overcome it all. We are convinced that no one of foreign investors would have gone through all this; they would not even dare to take such a step. And we have taken up these operations because NIBULON is a Ukrainian company that invests in the economy of our country; it works to ensure that our country flourishes and Ukrainians live well.
The third step was to create a fleet. We built an exclusive fleet intended for operation on the Southern Buh River: 6 tugs, in particular 3 vessels named after famous Mykolaiv shipbuilders – Yurii Makarov, Anatolii Hankevych, Nodari Chanturiia, as well as 12 non-self-propelled vessels.
As a result, total amount of NIBULON’s investment project to revive navigation along the Southern Buh River is USD 90 million.
But it is not all. As we have already noted, dredging operations and construction of transshipment terminals contributed to the revival of passenger navigation along the Southern Buh River. In 2017, NIBULON revived passenger transportation, having launched regular trips by the route Voznesensk – Kovalivka – Nova Odesa – Mykolaiv. Water transport, which is widely used in Europe, became very popular with Ukrainian passengers. 
However, we do not stop on what has been achieved. We will considerably extend this route by organizing water transportation along the Southern Buh River not only to Mykolaiv but also to other district centers of the region. Last year our company transported more than 4,000 passengers along the Southern Buh River. This year we plan to triple this figure.  Locals once again will see how comfortable and convenient it is to get to the district center and hard-to-reach coastal settlements.
Advantages
What are the benefits for Mykolaiv region?
Firstly, the traffic load on the highways is significantly reduced. Mykolaiv is transit city that suffers from a large number of vehicles. Having transported a million tons of cargo along the Southern Buh, we removed more than 41,000 trucks from the highway Voznesensk – Nova Odesa – Mykolaiv; they didn’t enter our city.
Secondly, the company contributed to the environmental situation improvement. Transporting such volumes of grain will save 1.4 million tons of fuel. The volume of fuel combustion products emissions (carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfur oxide, carbon black, and also non-methane organic compounds, methane and benzopyrene) will reduce by 4 thousand tons per year, thereby improving air in settlements. This will make their inhabitants healthier, as every inhabitant in the region will inhale by 4 kg pollutants less per year.  
Real plans
Our company constantly woks on improvement, so it doesn’t stop on what has been achieved.  We already have plans, the implementation of which will allow the tucks not to enter Mykolaiv at all. If you know our company well, you understand that these are not empty promises or populism. This is an absolutely real program. We can implement it but we need support from local authorities.
How can we do this? One can build a transshipment terminal in Mykolaiv district, thereby avoiding arrival of trucks from Mykolaiv district through Varvarivka bridge to Mykolaiv. Other companies can also follow our example. We will be happy about it.
As it happens, the authorities always blame the carriers of grain cargoes for broken roads. However, we should remember that more than 1 million tons of building cargoes (sand, stone, crushed stone) are transported through out city every year. But we have a real plan to solve this problem. Next year we plan to build a special fleet to transport building materials and thereby removing million tons of cargoes from the highways of our city.
There is one more absolutely real idea – to organize ferry service. This will allow one to reduce the transit flow by up to 2,000 of vehicles per day. In addition, residents of the city will not worry about their health, inhaling carbon black and other carcinogenic toxic substances; taking into account the number of cars, there is a threat of smog from toxic substances. Of course, we do not want such a terrible situation to happen in Mykolaiv.  Due to the implementation of these measures, the amount of toxic substances emissions can be reduced by approximately 40 thousand tons.
We have long ago handed our proposals to the leadership of the city and regional authorities. So instead of the annual PR on the terrible state of roads and the groundless accusation of our company, local officials simply need to carefully consider our proposals and provide the necessary support to implement this project. And that’s all. Besides, not only the problems listed above will be solved. There will be an opportunity to load our Mykolaiv shipbuilding plants with orders to construct ferries and tugs. At present these plants have no orders, and the employees have no salaries.
In the next 2-3 years our company plans to transport 4 million tons of agricultural products along the Dnipro River and 1 million tons along the Southern Buh River per year.
Obstacles
In order to make not only NIBULON concerned with the problems of the revival of the rivers as transport arteries, the following steps should be taken. In particular, the excise tax on oil products should be cancelled. If it is on Ukrainian rivers, there will be neither Ukrainian vessels under the Ukrainian flag, nor cargo and passenger river transportation. Unfortunately, people’s deputies from Mykolaiv region do not hear our company. Therefore, we once again draw attention to this issue of the people’s deputies of Ukraine – Borys Kozyr, Taras Kremin, Oleksandr Zholobetskyi, Oleksandr Livik, Arkadii Kornatskyi, Ihor Brychenko and Vadym Pidberezniak who are doing everything to prevent the revival of inland waterways, pushing along with the Ministry anti-state draft laws (in particular, 2475a). These draft laws would only harm the development of Ukrainian navigation, shipbuilding, and the economy of Ukraine as a whole.
Instead, we invite the people’s deputies to pay attention to an alternative draft law No. 2475a-4 initiated by the inter-faction deputy association “For the Development of Rivers of Ukraine” and Andriy Vadaturskyy, a people’s deputy.   The main idea of ​​this draft law is to lobby the interests of the state, in particular, the revival of shipbuilding in Mykolaiv, and not as some people mistakenly believe that it is a question of lobbying the interests of our company. If you truly are concerned with the problems of Ukrainians, support the Ukrainian flag and support the revival of domestic navigation and shipbuilding, you must support the alternative draft law No. 2475-a4. Do not resort to backroom arrangements and do not contribute to the emergence of corrupt schemes.
And finally, the question to the authorities: is it necessary to invite a foreign investor to implement all these projects? Obviously, there is no such need. First of all, it is necessary to involve domestic investors. But in this case, the Ministry of Infrastructure, the USPA must stop pumping money from the entire maritime complex of Ukraine, including the ports of Mykolaiv and Kherson, in order then to direct them to the development of one or two ports in Ukraine. Instead, these funds need to be directed to infrastructure projects, in particular in Mykolaiv, in order to stop this senseless struggle against the agrarian sector, which is forced to sell grain, and the city of Mykolaiv to be relieved of the excessive amount of transit transport.