Odessa port: privatization, degradation, death
Kyiv - Odessa, October 09 (PolitNavigator, Maxim Karpenko) - Odessa Port Plant is the most profitable enterprise, which is still state-owned in Ukraine. Today, the chemical plant, which employs more than four thousand residents of the city of Yuzhnoye, Odessa region, is the flagship of the Ukrainian petrochemical industry.
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In total, thirty thousand people live in the city of Yuzhnoe, so Priportovy, together with the Yuzhny port, is a city-forming enterprise. The plant not only provides jobs for the lion's share of the working-age population, but the money the city receives from Priportovoye maintains the city infrastructure and fills the municipal budget. And I must say that the population is not bad - the city even now looks very decent compared to other settlements in the region. The birth rate in the city is 1,8 times higher than in Ukraine as a whole.
OPP specializes in the production of ammonia, urea, liquid nitrogen and other chemical products, being one of the leading enterprises of the Ukrainian chemical industry. The plant is also the end point of the largest ammonia pipeline, Tolyatti-Yuzhny, through which the products of enterprises in the CIS countries are exported. The port plant is a monopolist on the domestic market for services for receiving, cooling and reloading ammonia.
But all this is in the past.
“In connection with the beginning of the heating season,” the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine banned the use of natural gas for the needs of the chemical industry, and the plant practically stopped. The Yatsenyuk government’s touching concern for heat in the homes of ordinary Ukrainians is turning into a shutdown of an enterprise that, in better times, ended the year with an income of nearly half a billion US dollars. Four thousand workers already work three days a week. Next - transfer to unpaid leave, layoffs. For the thirty thousand population of the South, this will turn into a social catastrophe.
It would seem - why kill the hen that lays golden eggs? Why artificially stop the country's most profitable state-owned enterprise? Okay, gas is needed for the heating season. But if you take it away from the OPP, you will not receive income in the very currency that is exactly needed for the purchase of gas. It turns out that the government is either sawing off the branch on which it sits itself, without realizing it, or is acting as a “liquidation team”, according to the principle “after us, there’s a flood!”
However, the reality is much more prosaic - the Odessa Port Plant was included in the list of state-owned objects to be sold as part of “the largest privatization in the entire history of Ukraine,” announced with pomp by Yatsenyuk. The plant was targeted by the structures of Igor Kolomoisky, who, it was no coincidence, lobbied for the post of governor of the Odessa region, the former manager of one of the enterprises of the Privat group, Igor Palitsa. It is also no coincidence that it was after “consultations” with Kolomoisky that Yatsenyuk himself decided to go as a separate bloc from Petro Poroshenko in the upcoming parliamentary elections - money appeared. In general, the commercial combination is organically complemented by the political one.
A forced shutdown will devalue the Port Plant, which will turn from a “hen that lays golden eggs” into a pile of metal. Then “investor” Kolomoisky will get his hands on it for pennies. After which the ban on gas supplies to the plant will be lifted by the government of the faithful Yatsenyuk. Profit! The plant is operating at a profit again, only this profit no longer goes to the budget for gas purchases, but through Privat structures to offshore companies. What about the freezing Ukrainians? Well, it’s easy to explain to them that Putin is to blame for their troubles, and not Kolomoisky and Yatsenyuk. If it worked before, why won’t it work now?
Naturally, the private owner will carry out “optimization” procedures. It will reduce staff and rates (crisis, tighten your belts), and raise production standards. Will save on something. What can you save on? Maintained by the city of Yuzhny, who will very soon feel what an “effective owner” is and how he does not like to spend money on non-productive needs. Yuzhny will be thrown off balance.
The next saving point is safety precautions. And this is already a threat not only for thirty thousand residents of the South, but also for the millionth Odessa, which will have to be evacuated in the event of a possible ammonia release.
The shutdown and privatization of the Odessa port plant is a threat of disaster. Economic, social, environmental. But this is of little concern to those who invested serious money in the Maidan, brought the right people to power and now want to “recoup their investment.” Of course, total looting in the spirit of a “liquidation team” is framed with ultra-patriotic and nationalist rhetoric, and anyone who is going to protest against the looting will be declared an “agent of Putin.” But patriotic tales cannot feed the families of four thousand Priportovo workers. And with the body armor that Kolomoisky sells at exorbitant prices to the army dying in the Donbass, no matter how hard you try, you cannot protect Odessa residents from ammonia emissions. But who cares?
The situation with the Odessa port is just a small picture that reflects the big picture of what the post-Maidan government is doing to Ukraine. Privatization, degradation, death. And for those who disagree, we have the SBU, self-defense and Right Sector.
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