The auction for the sale of the Bilhorod-Dnister port did not take place

Bilhorod-Dnister Seaport failed to sell again at the next auction, which was supposed to be held on September 16.

The protocol of the auction states that the reason was the lack of people willing to participate in the bidding.

The starting price for the port was reduced by half – from UAH 177,972,000 to UAH 88,986,000. The planned auction did not take place due to the lack of participants.

It will be recalled that the ex-head of the State Property Fund promised during the Grain Ukraine 2024 conference that the Bilhorod-Dnister port will definitely be privatized.

Vitaly Koval noted that the Fund wants to maximize the price of the object thanks to ship calls. However, ship calls to the port depend not only on the State Property Fund, but also on security factors, which are currently being worked on.

Also recently, the director of the Bilhorod-Dnister port, Oksana Kiktenko, said that the Ukrainian companies Nibulon and Nika-Tera are interested in the privatization of the Bilhorod-Dnister port.

Subsequently, Group DF  не братимуть участь в приватизаціїtold that they would not participate in the privatization of the Bilhorod-Dnister port.

As reported by the head of corporate communications Oleg Arestarkhov, the company’s main priorities are the restoration of the Nika-Tera port.

“We know very well how the port business works from the inside, we have our port Nika Tera, which was destroyed by the attacks of the Russian Federation. Among our post-war priorities is the restoration of the activity of our port. Only after the restart of its asset, the Group can consider the acquisition of other assets in the port industry, this is fundamentally important,” said Arestarkhov.

He also added that there are several very specific financial and organizational reasons why the group is not interested in this asset.

“In order to bring the port to profitable operation, additional colossal investments are needed. It is primarily about dredging works. That’s millions of dollars. Secondly, as far as I know, the balance of the port did not even have berths until the last one. Wharves are the heart and soul of the port. For any port business, it is fundamentally important to have access to the sea, and not to pay a concession to the state. To attract investors, the berths must be on balance. Thirdly, there is the problem of the escort city to the port, which was destroyed by the invaders. This is a significant logistical limitation,” Arestarkhov says.

He noted that the port has salary arrears. The reboot of the port will rest on the personnel problem, because specialists need to be bought from competitors.

Arestarkhov also added that it will be difficult for the Bilhorod-Dnister port to compete with the deep-sea ports of Odesa, where Panamax-type vessels can enter, which in turn affects the cost of transshipment.

“All this in the complex means that the payback period of such an investment will be too long to invest in this asset under today’s conditions,” he noted.