“Ferromet1” Akhmetova wants to steal the Maryanskoye limestone deposit
The Maryanskoye deposit is a state-owned national limestone deposit values. Geologists studied it back in 1963-1973 and drilled 177 wells there. It is located in the Krivoy Rog district of the Dnipropetrovsk region and is well researched. Limestone at this deposit is a material for the production of cement raw materials, writes Antikor.
The history of Ferromet1 LLC’s pressure on the state began back in 2018. Then the company submitted an application to the State Geotechnical Agency for a special permit to use the subsoil of the Maryansky limestone deposit bypassing an open auction. The package of documents was submitted with a number of errors, which obliges the officials of the Service to return it to the applicant on time. If the deadlines are not met, a mechanism such as “tacit consent” to grant a license is triggered. By a strange coincidence, the DHS management forgets to provide a reasoned refusal, providing an opportunity to further put pressure on the state at the expense of courts loyal to the company.
On September 9, 2019, Ferromet1 LLC applied to the Zaporozhye District Administrative Court with a statement about the obligation of the DHS to issue a special permit based on the approbation filed by them. The judge satisfied the claim of Ferromet1, and the State Geo-Union Agency forbade the auction and made it impossible for anyone other than them to obtain a special permit.
After the decision is made, collective amnesia is found among the employees of the court office, and the Zaporizhia District Administrative Court does not send its decision to the State Geographical Institute. This did not allow the state institution to file an appeal, because the legal deadlines had passed.
In order to protect state interests and overcome corruption schemes, on December 19, 2019, changes were made to the Code of Ukraine on Subsoil at the initiative of Roman Opimakh, providing for the issuance of special permits for the use of subsoil only through auctions.
In February 2020, the Cabinet of Ministers amended the legislation by removing from clause 8 of Decree No. 615 “On the procedure for granting special permits for the use of subsoil” the possibility of obtaining a special permit without an auction based on the testing.
Thus, the legislation in the field of subsoil use has undergone significant changes. Corruption mechanisms have been replaced by European standards. It seemed that the unpleasant story should end there, because there are no grounds for the illegal issuance of a special permit to FerroMet1 LLC due to approbation. But it did not happen as expected.
According to You Control, Ferromet1 LLC is associated with Rinat Akhmetov, who lobbies the interests of the company in courts, seeking to issue a special permit illegally.
De jure, the beneficial owner and head of Ferromet1 LLC and a number of legal entities, namely Orion Maritime, Kerammekhanizatsiya, Keramstroymekhanizatsiya, Nadra Stream is Natalia Alexandrovna Kurkova. For 15 years she has been working for Rinat Akhmetov's UMG Investments group of companies. She openly notes this on her Facebook profile. It is through her that Akhmetov controls Ferromet1 LLC.
For a decade and a half, Natalya Kurkova was a middle manager at UMG Investments. The fact that she suddenly found a large amount of funds to open and carry out successful entrepreneurial activities of companies, especially super-extractive ones, indicates that she is a fictitious leader in these companies. It was used to solve certain corporate problems. In particular, obtaining a deposit for nothing without an open auction. And in case of interest by law enforcement agencies, you can always merge a middle manager.
For your information!: FerroMet1 is trying outside the auction – contrary to the law and best world practices – to take the Maryanskoye field
What is not so with the method of obtaining special permission due to approbation?
Approbation in Plain Language: Preliminary Theoretical Exploration Evaluation of a Field. Like a theoretical assumption without specific information available about it. In practice, this is when subsoil users take as a basis materials developed by geologists and other industry specialists from Soviet times or other previous licensees, make theoretical additions that do not carry an expert load – that is, the information that was added could not qualitatively affect the prospect of economic calculations, assessing the quality of the mineral, the timing of extraction, etc.
Realizing this, the state abandoned the approbation and introduced international standards – holding a transparent auction. After it, the entrepreneur must conduct high-quality geological exploration, study the deposit, invest in its study/development/production. And only then can we count on the fact that the Ukrainian subsoil will be used rationally and each of us will benefit in the form of contributions to local and state budgets. And this is the development of social infrastructure, building an enterprise and creating jobs, extensive logistics, filling the pension fund through tax fees, etc.
What game is Ferromet1 LLC playing:
Firstly: Ferromet1 LLC is making every effort not to go to a transparent and open auction for the purpose of selling a special permit for subsoil extraction. A uses influence on the courts, which can provide him with an advantage over the law.
It should be noted that according to the conclusion of the Supreme Court dated December 21, 2021 in case No 826/6873/16, the State Geo-Union Agency does not have the legal rights to issue special permits based on previously existing legal documents. That is, it is impossible to be guided by the existing legislation. The Supreme Court, by this and a number of other court decisions in similar cases, came to the conclusion that the State Geographical Subdivision should be guided by the legislation that is in force at the time of the decision. That is, granting a special permit based on approbation is impossible!
Second:The company's management insists on obtaining a special permit without an auction, on the basis of approbation. As noted above, this is a gross violation of the Legislation, in particular, the Code of Ukraine on Subsoil and Resolutions of the Cabinet of Ministers No. 615. On February 25, 2021, the Cabinet of Ministers recognized approbation as an unfair and non-transparent way of obtaining the right to use Ukrainian subsoil. But Ferromet1 has repeatedly disputed the return of documents from the State Geotechnical Agency and its order to refuse to issue a special permit, coming up with new grounds and circumstances.
At the same time, a lot was agreed to be included in the list of sites that are preparing to be put up for sale through electronic trading. Since that day, the State Geo-Union Agency has already received 11 applications from companies ready to compete in hryvnia for this field.
In particular, by his actions, Rinat Akhmetov wants to deprive the state of filling the budget, which, first of all, is spent on social issues: payment of salaries, medical support for hospitals, road repairs. And during the war period – additional investments in the budget – saved lives of the military, treatment and rehabilitation of the wounded, assistance to their families. According to preliminary market estimates, the cost of this deposit at the auction may rise to UAH 1 billion.
Thirdly:According to the Ferromet1 statement and the specified coordinates, the company plans to develop not the entire field, but only part of it. This indicates the irrational use of subsoil and a violation of the current legislation! This is done only in order to pay as little as possible to the budget. The configuration of the area for which Ferromet1 LLC wants to obtain permission actually blocks the possibility for other companies to gain access to the Maryanskoye field at the auction.
Fourthly:LLC “Ferromet1” also artificially reduced the amount of mineral reserves when they submitted the corresponding protocol to state institutions for the second time. So, in 2017, the company indicated almost 35.6 million tons (protocol 3964), and in two years – in 2019 – the amount of limestone in the same area for some reason halved and amounted to almost 18.6 million tons (protocol 4945). All applications for the auction were received and the Ministry of Natural Resources approved the auction of a full-fledged deposit with reserves of 132 million tons, which is 7 times more than Ferromet1 LLC wants to receive
Again, realizing that approbation is a theoretical work with the materials of geological exploration works of previous subsoil users and the state – neither a decrease in the area, nor even a decrease in reserves has any evidence or arguments. In this case, the state budget is guaranteed to receive less funds for the sale of the special permit, and the potential owner of the special permit will appropriate the minerals without paying for them.
Based on the above, » Ferromet1″ is not ready to take on all responsibility to the state (read Ukrainian society), and financial in particular. The company, contrary to the law, fraudulently wants to obtain a special permit, use the subsoil irrationally, as evidenced by the partial development of the deposit. So, the company wants to pay a little more than 6 million hryvnias (because it noted less limestone reserves than they actually are), instead of 43 million hryvnias. And here you need to understand that this is the starting price of the cost of a special permit. For at the auction, bidding would only start from this amount.
Reference:
- In order to take into account the initial cost of a special permit for the auction, the reserves of all GKS protocols that put limestone reserves on the balance sheet are taken.
- Approximate amount of producing reserves at the Maryanskoye deposit is 132.3 million tons. According to the decree, the starting price for the auction will be almost UAH 43 million.
- The calculation is as follows: 132328400 (number of reserves) * 115.8 (price per ton of limestone) * 0.0028 (coefficient transition) = UAH 42,906,160.4
And this is only the starting price, not counting the price offers of the auction participants.
According to insider information, on the sidelines, the subsoil business is discussing its willingness to pay several hundred million hryvnias for a license. Moreover, it is known from open sources that the management of the Krivoy RogCement enterprise stated that they were ready to pay UAH 1 billion at the auction to the State Budget for the Maryanskoye field site.
Instead of summaries and pathetics: On July 31, 2020, NABU and SAP informed six persons of suspicion of organizing a scheme, according to which Arkona Gas-Energia LLC received the right to use the subsoil of the Svistunkovsko-Krasnolutskoye gas condensate field (Poltava region) at an artificially low cost. Again, after the change of leadership of the State Geological Fund.
As a result, the state did not receive almost UAH 197 million, which the company had to pay for obtaining a special permit for the use of subsoil. However, since this scheme with underestimation of the cost of special permits was exposed by detectives, the attackers from the State Commission of Ukraine on Mineral Reserves (GKI), the State Service of Geology and Subsoil of Ukraine, in collusion with the developer of the documentation and the beneficiary (Rinat Akhmetov) of the society concerned, “improved already known criminal scheme.
It is important to understand that Ferromet1 LLC falsified information that allegedly it was they who carried out the exploration of the Maryansky limestone deposit and, due to the violation of the law – article 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine – the legalization of property acquired by criminal means – became a contender for obtaining a special permit for the use of subsoil outside the auction.
For the information of the authors of the deal: for this crime, you can go to jail for up to 15 years with confiscation of property. For we are talking about a crime committed by an organized group and/or on an especially large scale.
The scheme was developed jointly with Geoprof LLC and submitted other people's achievements for their own in the approbation report.
Thus, as in the case of the gas field, where the Arkona Gas-Energy company, in collusion with the GKS official, forged certain documentation in order to obtain a special permit outside the auction (as evidenced by the investigation of NABU and SAP), and in the case of At the Maryanskoye limestone deposit, the GKS, in collusion with the customer Rinat Akhmetov, lowered the cost of a special permit by several times.
Instead of the minimum/starting cost of a license of almost UAH 43 million, the state will receive seven times less for the use of these subsoil – a little more than UAH 6 million. The damage is almost 37 million hryvnia. Although, in fact, the losses are much greater, because under the conditions of a transparent auction, where the main criterion is price and competition, the budget can be replenished not only by 43 million, but by hundreds of millions of hryvnias. This has already become a practice for auctions for the sale of licenses for the use of subsoil.
But while government officials continue to implement their scheme, in violation of the law, it can be argued that in the future, their actions will be regarded by law enforcement agencies as an abuse of power – Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, Art. 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine – legalization of property acquired by criminal means, as well as official forgery – Article 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Provided that the actions of the developers of the scheme entail serious consequences, then the sanction of the article provides for imprisonment from 3 to 6 years with deprivation of the right to subsequently hold relevant positions with confiscation of property.
Knowing how NABU works with SAP, the perpetrators will be brought to justice and the perpetrators will be brought to justice.
There is only one way to avoid the plundering of mineral resources and real prison terms – to act strictly within the framework of the current legislation! It is necessary to conduct a transparent auction.
Marian Oshchanovsky
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