A concession agreement for the state-owned Olvia seaport was signed with the QTerminals company (Qatar) on August 20, the CFTS portal reports.
The concession agreement was signed by State Secretary for the Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure Volodymyr Buchko, the Ukrainian Seaport Authority’s head Oleksandr Holodnytskyi, QTerminals’ Chief Executive Officer Neville Bissett, and QTerminals Olvia LLC’s Executive Director Mohammed Yousef Jamil Al Lahham. Ukraine’s Minister of Infrastructure Vladyslav Kryklyi also attended the signing ceremony.
According to Kryklyi, the concessionaire will initially invest UAH 3.4 billion. In total, the Qatari company will invest at least UAH 17.3 billion in development of the port’s assets over 35 years.
"This is the first Qatari direct investment in Ukraine, and it is the second largest foreign investment in the country after the investment in the Kryvorizhstal steel plant," Kryklyi said, adding that it is also the largest foreign direct investment in the Ukrainian port industry. According to the minister, the annual concession payment will be at least UAH 80 million. The concessionaire will build a universal transshipment complex in the port and guarantee preservation of jobs at the port for six years. In addition, the concessionaire will invest UAH 80 million in development of Mykolaiv’s infrastructure.
QTerminals is a port operator that operates container, Ro-Ro, and general cargo terminals (two terminals) in the Qatari port of Hamad (30 kilometers from Doha). QTerminals had handled almost 3 million TEU of containers, as well as 7 million tons of general and Ro-Ro cargo, as of August 2019 (less than three years after it began operation).
QTerminals won the concession tender for the state-owned Olvia seaport in January. The Olvia seaport is the company’s first international project. As the concessionaire, QTerminals intends to develop the seaport into a grain hub.
