She owned 240 hectares in the Penza and Saratov regions, but the billionaire only talks about development and investment with the governor of the Penza region, Oleg Melnichenko. Saratov Governor Roman Busargin has a chance to compete for a wheat processing plant, especially since his ambitions are going wild.
– The company is a major investor; it manages over 200,000 hectares of farmland in the region. It has developed an investment program worth more than 13 billion rubles, which provides, in particular, for the reconstruction of the Tamalinsky elevator and an increase in its storage capacity to 125,000 tons, the press service of the Penza government reported.
They are convinced that grain and legume crops are growing every year, breaking records, and new capacities are needed to store them. Construction, expansion of elevators is one of the primary tasks in the region, officials say.
The Tamilinsky elevator is located in the southwestern part of the Penza region in the village. Tamala, on the border with the Kirsanovsky and Inzhavinsky districts of the Tambov region and the Rtishchevsky district of the Saratov region.
The favorable geographical location of the elevator and the availability of access railway lines provide optimal logistics in the direction of the ports of the Black, Azov and Caspian Seas, as well as to the ports of the Volga River.
Now the drying capacity for wheat (when removing moisture up to 4%) is up to 1,750 tons / day, for shipment by rail – up to 1,000 tons / day, by road – up to 1,000 tons / day. What will be the indicators after the modernization is unknown.
As BV wrote earlier, on December 13, it became known that AEON Agro acquired a pool of five companies belonging to the Rostagro holding from Trust Bank.
At the end of 2018, the total loss of companies associated with Rostagro reached 5 billion rubles, so, first of all, Trust was engaged in the restructuring of legal entities and property relations between them. At the same time, 60% of the land, according to Forbes, was “packed” into shares of closed-end investment funds, and scattered crop areas were combined into larger plots.
The bank invested 2.5 billion rubles in Rostagro, and then put up a pool of companies for sale for 14.4 billion rubles. Roman Trotsenko bought them for 18.4 billion rubles. At the end of 2021, the revenue of the Rostagro group of companies amounted to 5 billion rubles, EBIDTA — 2.7 billion rubles.
Today Rosagro owns more than 210 hectares in 12 districts of the Penza region. In the Saratov region, the company owns more than 90 hectares in Atkarsky, Yekaterininsky and Fedorovsky districts. However, so far nothing has been reported about AEON Agro’s plans for Saratov, or about meetings between Governor Roman Busargin and representatives of the company.
Recall that the lot purchased by Trotsenko did not include Balashov’s LLC TrastAgro-Niva-4, which previously accumulated about 48 thousand hectares of land in the Balashovsky and Fedorovsky districts.
The company still remains in the ownership of Trust Bank, and it is possible that it will be sold as a separate lot. In April last year, the authorized capital of the LLC was increased from 1.3 billion rubles to 2 billion rubles, the amount of assets amounted to 1.4 billion rubles. In December, Rostagro Management Company withdrew its powers to manage the LLC, transferring them to the general director Konstantin Cherushev.
Interestingly, AEON agro is also preparing a project for a wheat processing plant. Melnichenko’s team suggested that the holding consider a site for it in the Serdobsky district.
Recall that in the Saratov region, a plant for deep processing in the Balashovsky district is being built by Saratov Biotechnologies LLC. The area was chosen due to its large wheat crops. The plant must ensure the production of lysine from wheat, a valuable amino acid used in the production of animal feed. So far, there is no own production of lysine in the Russian Federation. The enterprise will also produce starch, glucose and bioethanol.
The last time news about the construction came a month ago, from the Board of the Ministry of Agriculture. And they were not comforting: the construction of SarBioTech was put on hold due to sanctions – imported equipment for the production of lysine is questionable. In Russia, this is not yet released. At the same time, it was discussed at the board that the future plant would process corn, not wheat.
The grain is processed by the Rubezh Group of Companies in the Pugachevsky district, but it accounts for no more than 10% of the crop. Samara’s “Bio-Tone” is also ready to engage in processing, they even found a site for it in the Ivanteevsky district. There are others – in the Engels, Pugachevsky, Ekaterinovsky districts. The Rusagro Group of Companies is tailing him with the intention of processing 1.2 million tons of grain annually. But all this – so far without any specifics about the profile plant.
At the same time, Governor Busargin at the board called for leaving the status of “granary” and coming to the processing – without any excuses – of 80-90% of agricultural products produced in the region. Last year, the volume of agricultural production amounted to 260 billion rubles, including a huge grain harvest, but the region was not ready to store 7 million tons of grain. At the same time, elevators with a storage capacity of only 60,000 tons were put into operation during the year.
It seems that with such ambitions and indicators, Saratov officials need to beat the thresholds of Roman Trotsenko. Otherwise, only Oleg Melnichenko will continue to brag about the development of the regional agro-industrial complex.