The Nibulon company (Nikolayev), one of the largest producers and exporters of grains and oils crops, plans to begin dredging work on the Southern Bug river before the end of October 2015, the Interfax Ukraine news agency reports.
"Our company plans to start its own dredging work on the Southern Bug River before the end of October because government agencies are currently not taking systemic steps to address this issue," the company’s General Director Oleksii Vadaturskyi is quoted as saying in a statement on its website.
According to him, the river will become so shallow that movement of vessels will essentially become impossible in the future if this problem is ignored.
The project for dredging the Southern Bug River includes improvement of the shipping conditions on the waterways from Voznesensk to Nikolayev.
The total length of the section on which navigation conditions will be improved is 31.3 kilometers. After completion of the work, the total cost of which will be about UAH 100 million, the depth of the navigable channel will increase to 2.9 meters (in the Nikolayev-Novaya Odessa section) and 2.65 meters (in the Novaya Odessa-Voznesensk section) and the width of the navigable channel will increase to 40 meters.
Vadaturskyi recently said that the Ministry of Infrastructure doubted whether it was necessary to dredge River Dnieper. The ministry denied this, saying that the delay in dredging the river was related to finalization of Nibulon’s dredging project, which has drawbacks.
During expert assessment of the project, the Ukrgosstroyekspertiza construction project assessment agency said that the project had certain deficiencies. The designer of the project was expected to submit adjusted project documentation in early September, after which the project was expected to receive the final expert approval and the conclusion of a government environmental-impact review performed by the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine.
Established in 1991, Nibulon is one of the largest operators on the Ukrainian grain market. The company owns grain elevators with a total capacity of over 1.7 million tons and its own transshipment terminal in Nikolayev.
