Ukrtransgaz, a subsidiary of Ukrainian national oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy, has named Zangas NGS (Mykolaiv) the winner of a tender to upgrade and repair a 27.6 km Ukrainian section of the Urengoi-Pomary-Uzhgorod trunk gas pipeline.
Ukrtransgaz reported on the government procurements Web site that the
bid from Zangas NGS, which is part of Dmytro Firtash’s DF Group, of Hr
235.14 million (with VAT around $29.42 million at the current exchange
rate), was accepted on December 13. The companies have until January 12
2013 to complete the deal.
Work to upgrade the linear part of the pipeline at section
3,851.3-3,878.9 (Nemyriv, Illintsi and Lypovets districts in Vinnytsia
region) should be completed by August 2014 and includes a complete
replacement of pipes from the Illintsi connection junction to the line
tap at 3,878.9 km.
The tender documents state that Ukrtransgaz should pay 30% in advance
for the purchase of equipment, materials and for construction and
installation work.
Naftogazbud (Lviv) was another bidder in the tender and bid Hr 236.15 million.
The priority gas transport system upgrade projects in Ukraine are the
western transit corridor (Soyuz, Urengoi-Pomary-Uzhgorod and Progress
pipelines) and the southern corridor (Yelets-Kremenchuk-Kryvy Rih and
Ananyev-Tiraspol-Izmail pipelines).
Ukraine announced in the summer of 2011 that it was launching a
project to modernize the country’s gas transport system that, according
to preliminary estimates, is to cost $5.3 billion over five to seven
years. Investment in upgrading the trunk pipelines will enable Ukraine
to cut costs by improving the system efficiency.
The first phase of reconstruction will be the modernization of the
Urengoi-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline, which envisages reconstruction of the
Ukrainian section and should take three years. Investment in the first
phase is estimated at $538.87 million. Ukraine plans to raise 308
million ($154 million each) from the EBRD and the EIB and Naftogaz
Ukrainy is to put up another $208.87 million of its own funds.
The length of the Ukrainian section of the pipeline is 1,160 km and pipe diameter is 1,420 mm.
Transit of natural gas via Ukraine to Europe and the CIS grew 5.7% year-on-year in 2011 to 104.2 billion cubic meters.
Ukrtransgaz operates a system of trunk gas pipelines and underground
gas storage facilities in Ukraine. The Ukrainian gas transport system
has entry capacity of 288 billion cubic meters and exit capacity of
178.5 billion cubic meters, including 142.5 billion cubic meters to
European countries and 3.5 billion cubic meters to Moldova.
The Group DF energy infrastructure development business is
represented by a group of Zangas construction companies, including CJSC
Zangaz (Russia) and Zangas-NGS (Ukraine), which specializes in the
construction of oil and gas pipelines as well as other oil and gas
infrastructure.
