The scandal surrounding the Odessa Port Plant has received a new continuation. Agro Gas Trading (AGT), which NABU detectives and SAP prosecutors call a key private partner of the OPP in the period 2019–2021 and a figure in an alleged gas tolling scheme that is unprofitable for the state, has officially submitted an application to participate in the privatization auction of the enterprise. The auction is scheduled by the State Property Fund for November 25, 2025, with a starting price of UAH 4.48 billion. AGT confirmed that it has submitted a full package of documents and paid a participation fee.
The plant is being put up for sale in its entirety: it is planned to alienate more than 99% of OPZ shares through Prozorro.Sale. The lot includes production, infrastructure and social facilities, including treatment plants, health and auxiliary complexes, as well as large land plots. As of the summer of 2025, the plant employed about 1,400 people, but the financial condition of the enterprise remained critical: in January-June 2025, OPZ declared UAH 322.6 million in income and at the same time UAH 280.8 million in losses; for 2024, the total loss exceeded UAH 1.8 billion, debts and overdue liabilities reached billions, including salary and tax arrears.
It was against this backdrop of the OPP's unprofitability that interest in the person who is now trying to buy it arose. According to the NABU investigation, in 2019–2021, the "plant worked under AGT": a private company supplied gas, and in return received the right to sell finished products (ammonia and urea), leaving OPP only a fixed "processing fee". The amount of this fee, according to detectives, did not even cover the plant's basic costs, while the main profit was concentrated on a third-party supplier. In the calculations of the A-95 consulting group for 2020, published in the media and reproduced in the investigation materials, AGT could earn about $ 44 million, while the state-owned OPP itself showed a net loss of UAH 1.2 billion with revenue of UAH 2.3 billion.
The NABU and SAPO investigation qualifies this model as a corruption deal with signs of an organized group. The detectives' materials mention the former head of the State Property Fund Dmytro Sennychenko (whom the investigation calls the organizer of the scheme), businessman Andriy Hmyrin, former director of OPZ Mykola Parsentiev, as well as co-owners of Agro Gas Trading — Oleksandr Gorbunenko and Volodymyr Kolot. According to anti-corruption authorities, Sennychenko alone could have received more than $1.3 million in illegal profits. In April 2023, NABU put Sennychenko on the wanted list in a case regarding the possible withdrawal of funds from the plant.
AGT publicly denies the allegations, claiming that there was no “kickback” or collusion, and that all contracts with OPP were concluded on market terms. The company emphasizes that it worked transparently, supplied gas to the plant when the market was unstable and prices fluctuated sharply, and this allegedly ensured that OPP could not stop. AGT’s official 2020 reporting recorded a profit of about UAH 164.5 million on revenue of over UAH 5.4 billion — figures that are significantly lower than the unofficial estimates of “tens of millions of dollars” of margins published by critics.
The new twist in the situation is that now this very company wants to gain control over the entire asset, which, according to anti-corruption authorities, previously actually worked in its interests. This raises obvious questions: if AGT gets the OPP into private ownership, will the same model, which, according to the investigation, cost the state over UAH 2 billion in losses, not be legalized? Critics call this “reward for the scheme,” especially considering that the plant remains unprofitable and its debts are huge, so buying it today means gaining control over a strategic chemical hub for a relatively low starting price, but with the potential for recovery after the war.
Another line of tension is the role of Kernel Group, Andriy Verevsky’s agroholding. Kernel is officially considered another contender for participation in the auction: the company has financial resources and logistics assets in the Odessa region, and Verevsky himself has been actively consolidating processing, exports and port logistics in recent years. Kernel declared more than $4 billion in revenue for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, reduced its debts by almost half — to about $143 million — and declared its readiness to invest in infrastructure for deeper processing and exports.
For several weeks now, the market has been circulating a version that Kernel is the “real buyer” of the private sector. A number of public statements and posts by activists claim that Verevsky’s company had previously made a guarantee deposit of about UAH 50 million to participate in the privatization. This is presented as a sign that the outcome of the auction has allegedly been decided in advance and the entire procedure on November 25 will be just a formality.
At the same time, it is important to note: neither Kernel nor the State Property Fund publicly confirmed that the winner had already been determined. According to the official rules of Prozorro.Sale, applications for participation are accepted until the evening of November 24, 2025, the guarantee deposit is over UAH 224 million, and the starting price of a block of shares is UAH 4.48 billion with an increase of approximately UAH 44.9 million. Formally, any investor who manages to fulfill the requirements of the privatization law and provides security can participate in the auction.
In practice, the situation looks politically toxic. On one side is AGT, a company that has long been identified with schemes that NABU considers unprofitable for the state, and whose co-owners appear in criminal proceedings alongside the former management of the State Property Fund. On the other side is Andriy Verevsky's Kernel, one of the strongest private players in agro-export, which opponents publicly accuse of trying to "quietly take" a strategic chemical asset for their own logistics empire.
The stakes for the state here are higher than just another sale of a large plant. Odessa Port is a hub through which ammonia and urea traditionally flowed, as well as a point of potential restart of chemical exports after the war. Its privatization is a test of the transparency of large-scale privatization in wartime. If the bidding really turns into a "formality", as critics suggest, then the story of OPP will not be a story of the plant's recovery, but a story of how one of the most resonant anti-corruption cases received an elegant business solution.
