Daily monitor

Yesterday, National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) increased the wholesale electricity tariff and dropped oblenergos’ 2009 investment programs, along with a respective cut in transmission and supply tariffs.

According to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), the share of bad loans in Ukraine increased by 17 b.p. to 2.44% in January.

The National Bank of Ukraine’s Acting Head, Anatoliy Shapovalov, announced that, on February 27, the Board of the NBU is going to discuss the issue of providing state capital to Ukrainian banks.

Standard & Poor’s, a rating agency, has cut Ukraine’s long-term and short-term foreign currency rating to CCC+/C from B/B, with a negative outlook. Similarly, Ukraine’s local currency ratings were lowered to B-/C from B+/B.

The National Bank of Ukraine’s Acting Head, Anatoliy Shapovalov, announced that the NBU and bankers have reached a pre-agreement about an arrangement that will allow borrowers to repay their foreign exchange loans according to the NBU’s intervention exchange rate (7.9 USD/UAH), which is now significantly lower than the interbank rate (8.9 USD/UAH) or the cash exchange rate at banks, according to which borrowers buy USD to repay their foreign exchange debts to banks.

The Interpipe Novomoskovsk Pipe-Production Plant [NVTR UZ, U/R] announced an AGM for April 09. There are no extraordinary questions on the agenda.

The total volume of sunflower seed exports in February 2009 is going to reach its record level in five months. According to Ukroliya, sunflower seed exports in February will expand to 200 thsd mt, which is 23.5% more than total exports for the last five months of the 2008/09 marketing year.

According to an announcement made by Kredobank [ZUKB UZ, U/R], the bank is going to increase its statutory capital by UAH 1.024 bln, bringing it up from UAH 526.8 mln to UAH 1.55 bln through an additional share issue that is scheduled to take place on April 2-23, 2009. The bank plans to place 102.41 bln shares, each having a UAH 0,01 par value.

On February 24, only 0.5 thsd mt of oil was sold at Resources Auction 126, which took place on the floor of the Ukrainian Interbank Currency Exchange. According to our source at the UICE, the average price of oil was UAH 1,502 per mt (down 28.5% from the last Auxiliary Auction 125-D on January 27), or USD 18.4 per bbl (excluding VAT, at USD/UAH 9.26, down 38.4%).

Zaporizhtransformator [ZATR UZ, N/R] – the world's largest manufacturer of transformer equipment – has announced its intention to supply 11 transformers to the Iranian company MAPNA (Iran Power Plant Project Management Company). The contract, which is worth EUR 19 mln, is to be fulfilled by April 2010.