Transit potential of Ukraine: Requiem for a dream

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Транзитный потенциал Украины: реквием по мечте

 

After the “victory of the Maidan” Kiev regime announced the inevitability of the European integration course of Ukraine. True Ukrainian “integration” was associated with deindustrialization, the flight of social capital and the loss of the country’s transit potential – all of this you can predict by looking at the consequences of European integration of the Baltic States.

At the same time, Ukraine is too big country to qualify for European subsidies in the amount of one third of budget revenues, as is happening with public finances of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Because the drying up of the sources of income has on Ukraine, which is stronger than in the Baltic countries. The most painful blow to the Ukrainian economy, after the elimination of the high-tech industry, has become the “decommunization” of infrastructure and a sharp decrease of transit through the territory of the country, which at the best of times Ukraine was making $8-10 billion per year.

It is no secret that the Ukrainian powers that be for “independent” times ruthlessly exploited the infrastructure legacy left over from the “criminal Soviet past.” On the 25th year of “independence” of the decay of the infrastructure has reached catastrophic values, and the necessary financial resources required at least to maintain the infrastructure at the proper level (not to mention modernization), there is not expected in the foreseeable future. Although based on Keynesian economic doctrine, the best recipe out of the crisis is to invest in infrastructure.

It affects the traditional gluttony of the Ukrainian ruling class: for example, in 2005, immediately after the “orange Maidan”, target loan for the modernization of the Ukrainian GTS from Deutsche Bank a €500 million were stolen with such speed that the allocation of the next tranche has been frozen. At present, the cost of modernization of the Ukrainian GTS is estimated at $5 billion.

If in the era of Yushchenko “Naftogaz of Ukraine” has evaluated the level of wear of the GTS at 60%, then today we can safely assume that the wear has reached at least 80%. Frequent accidents on gas pipelines in 2016 started for the Transcarpathian and Lviv regions with a major emergency, resulting in 3 thousand subscribers were left without gas supply. And just recently, in late August – early September have been cases of depressurization of the main gas pipelines in the Odessa region and the above Lviv.

However, the Ukrainian establishment has never had a strategic thinking. After the “orange Maidan” began a deterioration of relations with Russia, causing Moscow gradually began to exclude Ukraine from the transit routes. First of all – routes flow of energy.

The design capacity of the Ukrainian GTS was designed to pump 110-120 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year – about the same volume of transit was written in the gas agreements of 2009. However, in recent years the Ukrainian gas transportation system operates on the brink of profitability of 60 billion cubic meters per year from 2014 to 59.4 billion 2015 – 67,1 billion In connection with insufficient volume of gas flow, the operator of the Ukrainian GTS “Ukrtransgaz” (around which recently there was a scandal in connection with the amendment of the Charter of the company) plans to soon reduce the capacity of the system, to conserve 30% of gas compressor stations and abandoning the operation 400 km of gas pipelines. In the case of successful commissioning of the Nord stream-2″ and/or “Turkish stream” is the volume flow through Ukraine will fall to 10-20 billion would be more profitable to cut of the Ukrainian GTS for scrap, instead of accumulating losses.

Significantly decreased the amount of pumping oil through Ukraine. The capacity of the Ukrainian pipeline is 67 million tons per year. However, in 2002 through Ukraine pumped only 22 million tonnes, after Moscow built the alternative routes of pumping “black gold”. In 2015 Ukraine has passed only 15 million tons, in 2016 this figure will drop another 20-30%. It raises questions and technical condition of the Ukrainian pipeline system, a major blow which caused Kolomoisky, vykazali spring-summer 2014 technical oil from pipelines.

The failure of the privatization of Odessa portside plant (OPZ), whose starting price is already reduced to the minimum $150 million (and in fact a few years ago and was expected to fetch at least $1 billion – until relatively recently, the SCR controlled 25% of world shipments of ammonia), revealed another problem – in the nearest time Ukraine will lose transit of ammonia via its territory. Moscow decided to redirect the ammonia pipeline “Tolyatti-Odessa” in the port of Temryuk of Krasnodar Krai. By the way, Moscow gradually builds and the plots of the railroad tracks that bypass Ukrainian territory.

At least “optimistic” the situation with the transit of electric energy. As a result, “reform” of the energy sector name Demchishin, Ukraine has lost the technical ability to supply electricity to European countries – Poland, Slovakia, Hungary. A terrorist act on the border with Crimea (undermining the “activists”, PL) are treated by Ukrainian authorities as a simple hooliganism, not only led to the loss of market on the Peninsula, but the problems with energy supply, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions.

The sad state of Affairs in the field of road, port and railway infrastructure. According to the rating “Logistics Performance Index 2016”, published on the website of the world Bank, Ukraine for two years lost 19 positions in the ranking of logistics efficiency, dropping to 80th place.

In General this is not surprising – the only time in 25 years the road was repaired during the “criminal authorities Donetsk at Euro 2012. Today, according to the profile Minister Omelyana, the degree of wear of the roadway is 97% (and the fact that the Kiev regime surpasses road armor only exacerbates the situation). At the same time, Groisman recently boasted that the government is 60% completed patching of local roads – a drop in the sea is not the background of the scale of the problem. In particular, deputies of the Nikolaev regional Council declared the situation on the highways of the state value, passing through the present emergency is life-threatening and health of people.

The degree of wear of seaports and rail infrastructure is 90-95%. Especially painful is the situation with rail transportation because of shortages of which substantial damages are farmers and metallurgists. The shortage of rail cars (about 9 million units) and locomotives forced the Cabinet to abandon sanctions against Russia in the sphere of import of transport engineering products. In General, the technical condition of the rolling stock catastrophic: January 1, 2015, 99.4% of locomotives and 72% of electric locomotives have fulfilled the normative service life (20-30 years). Also overdue overhaul of 171 354 locomotive and electric locomotives.

Falling volumes of freight turnover in Ukrainian ports – in 10 months of 2016, this figure fell by 10%, and since coming to power, “a team of European professionals by about 40%.

Pitiable is the situation of air transportation through Ukrainian territory. Shot down in Donbass “Boeing” and the gap yatsenyukovsky Cabinet direct air links with Russia led to the fact that Ukraine became a “white spot” on the map of European air transport. Just go to public web service flightradar24 to see this.

The short-sightedness and unpredictability of the Ukrainian political class has played a very cruel joke with the country, which could make serious money by leveraging its advantageous geographical position. Alas, with dreams of getting a transit rents will have to finally say goodbye over the next 3-5 years.

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