Daily monitor

National Energy Regulatory Commission (NERC) expects the first electricity export auction in July, NERC head Valery Kalchenko told journalists yesterday. The auction will be for access to the export capacities of Burshtyn Energy Island, which is integrated into UCTE. The auction will be held by the state owned transmission grid operator “Ukrenergo” once a month for a period of up to one year.

Kyiv Metro released an announcement regarding a request to the Kyiv City Council to approve a leasing deal for 100 metro cars. The deal’s value is estimated at UAH 800 mln (USD 104 mln). A down payment equal to 15%, or UAH 120 mln, will be made in 2009 and other leasing payments will occur over 2010-2014.

According to an Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine press release, four mobile operators (MTS, Kyivstar, URS, Astelit), two fixed line providers (Golden Telecom and Ukrtelecom [UTLM UZ, U/R]) and two CDMA players (Inter Telecom and Ukrainian Telesystems) were indentified as monopolists on the interconnect market.

According to an Uktelecom [UTLM UZ, U/R] press release, the company increased its monthly base tariff for fixed line services by 15-20% for urban and by 10% for rural customers. The new tariff includes 200 free minutes per month as before. The price per minute in excess of the 200 minutes in the base package remains unchanged.

According to an EBRD statement, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development intends to invest up to EUR 20 mln into Megabank’s equity and long-term senior loan. The purpose of this investment is “to support bank’s capital and liquidity positions”.

The president of Ukraine cancelled a decree banning the privatisation of 9 companies that the government approved in December 2008.

On May 26, 220.2 thsd mt of oil was sold at Auxiliary Resources Auction 129-D, which took place on the floor of the Ukrainian Interbank Currency Exchange. According to UICE’s official information, the average price of the oil was UAH 1,228 per mt (down 3.3% from the last large-volume auction, Auction 128, which took place on April 22), or USD 18.1 per bbl (excluding VAT, at USD/UAH 7.70, up 0.5%).

According to a press release from Zaporizhtransformator [ZATR UZ, N/R] – the world's largest manufacturer of transformer equipment – the company has signed a new contract with Kambaratinskoy Hydro Power Plant (HPP) in Kyrgyzstan. The new block power transformer will be delivered to the client by the end of September 2009. The value of the contract has not been disclosed yet due to an agreement between the partners.

According to the figures released by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), the BOP deficit in April grew USD 1.1 bln. Therefore, the BOP deficit in January-April reached USD 6.3 bln.

According to a press release from Kharkiv-based Turboatom [TATM UZ, HOLD] – the largest turbine manufacturer in Ukraine – the company has plans to increase CAPEX to USD 2.6 mln. mainly for modernizing and developing its production facilities in 2009. TATM has already announced plans to complete the first stage of its workshop N50 reconstruction by the end of 2009, which will allow the company to increase the quality of its castings.