Odessa Port Plant is one of the main enterprises in Ukraine, which, in particular, is engaged in transshipment of chemical products to maritime transport. The privatization of OPPs has been announced several times over almost 20 years, but it has not taken place. According to political scientist Andriy Myselyuk, the reasons for the “slippage” with privatization lie both inside the country and abroad,
KYIV. UkraineGate , 21 , June , 2022 | Society.
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“There’s a whole epic in the style of a soap opera or a series of detective investigations. The issue of privatization began in the 2000s. I am more or less familiar with the period in 2015, when its privatization was really approached, but the attempt was thwarted.
One can imagine and conclude that such a long history was due to the fact that this company, like a tasty morsel, was interesting for the great Russian players who wanted to gain control over it. And, of course, there were influential Ukrainian characters who were interested in maintaining control over the work of the company, over its assets, and this confrontation continued.
In 2015, when there was an attempt to privatize it, when everything was really ready – NABU intervened and, in fact, their efforts thwarted this privatization. After that, the company, which was at the center of the scandal, including thanks to Saakashvili (then head of the Odessa regional state administration – ed.) Ceased to be interesting to large investors .
I will not operate at the level of assumptions. But what concerns the interest of big Russian businessmen in the OPP, and perhaps Dmitry Mazepin was among them, it is really a known fact, “- said the political scientist.
Mazepin, Saakashvili and OPP
In 2015, the Mirror of the Week published information from the Russian newspaper Dni that Dmytro Mazepin, the then owner of the Russian holdings Uralkhim and Togliattiazot, was negotiating the purchase of the OPP.
It was noted in the media that Mazepin had allegedly already discussed such a possibility with the head of the then Odessa regional state administration, Mikheil Saakashvili. Uralkhim denied such interest and talks with Mikheil Saakashvili, but such a denial was quite natural given the political situation, the Mirrors of the Week told reporters at the time.
Let’s add
A few days before the war in Ukraine, Mazepin talked with Russian President Putin and promised to “surrender” Odessa in exchange for control of the Odessa port plant , through which his company “TogliattiAzot” transports its ammonia to other countries.
The possibility of such transit and export of ammonia in the future of the Russian “TogliattiAzot” is really possible only in one way – through the ammonia pipeline “Togliatti-Odesa”.
On average, Russia distills 2.5 million tons of ammonia each year through this ammonia pipeline. Russia receives up to $ 12 billion a year from ammonia supplies through Ukraine to the West.
Source: Ukrgate
