«90% completed»: the contractor told about the readiness of the water supply system for Mykolaiv and the difficulties in work

The construction of the water supply system for Mykolaiv is 90% complete. Photo: Autostrada

Maksym Shkil, founder of «Avtostrada», spoke about the ongoing construction of the water supply system for Mykolaiv. So far, almost 120 kilometres of pipes have been laid, which is more than 90% of the total length of the water supply system.

The general contractor wrote about this in his Facebook post.

According to Maksym Shkil, the facility employs nearly 2,000 workers and more than 1,000 pieces of equipment that work around the clock.

«The total length of the water supply system is 67.8 km in two lines with a capacity of 120,000 m³ per day for Mykolaiv and 50,000 m³ for the reclamation system of Nova Odesa and Mykolaiv district. As of today, almost 120 km of pipes have been laid, which is more than 90% of the total length of the water supply system,» said Maksym Shkil.

The construction of the water supply system for Mykolaiv is 90% complete. Photo: Autostrada

The construction of the water supply system for Mykolaiv is 90% complete. Photo: Avtostrada

The construction of the water supply system for Mykolaiv is 90% complete. Photo: Autostrada

Along with the construction of the highway, work is underway on the water intake canal on the Southern Bug. Installation of all four branches that will transport water to pumping station №1 in the New Odesa area has been completed. The next stage involves installing pipes on concrete supports at the bottom of the canal.

«We are engaging divers to carry out preparatory work: a base of concrete slabs is being formed at the bottom of the canal to ensure reliable fixation and stability of the pipelines. Once the installation is complete, the intake channel will be backfilled in accordance with the design requirements. The pumping stations are also at a high level of readiness, with the main construction of stations 1 and 3 completed and the works on station 2 in the process of completion. The installation of electrical and pumping equipment is scheduled for the end of June, which is a key stage for commissioning,» the contractor wrote.

The construction of the water supply system for Mykolaiv is 90% complete. Photo: Autostrada

The construction of the water supply system for Mykolaiv is 90% complete. Photo: Avtostrada

The construction of the water supply system for Mykolaiv is 90% complete. Photo: Avtostrada

At the same time, the contractor explains that in some areas the work is complicated by natural conditions. In particular, this requires additional stabilisation measures.

«The water pipeline route is being laid outside of settlements, which preserves the existing infrastructure and accelerates the pace of work. In places where the route crosses rivers, motorways, railways, oil and gas pipelines, horizontal directional drilling is used, which allows for installation without damaging the surface and disrupting infrastructure. The water pipeline route includes 20 such crossings, 14 of which have already been completed,» he said.

During the construction of the water pipeline, a unique engineering and technological case is being implemented — a horizontal puncture under the bottom of the Inhul River. The length of the crossing is 462 metres and the depth is 14 metres, the equivalent of a four-storey building.

The construction of the water supply system for Mykolaiv is 90% complete. Photo: Autostrada

Water pumping between pumping stations and commissioning is scheduled to start in the second half of July.

As a reminder, the reconstruction of the water utility's treatment facilities required to launch the new water supply system in Mykolaiv will cost around 70 million hryvnias. When the new water supply system is launched in autumn 2025, the water in the taps of Mykolaiv residents will meet sanitary standards.

At the same time, it is known that the construction of new water treatment facilities in Mykolaiv was previously estimated at 132 million euros. However, the construction of the water supply system from Nova Odesa reduced the cost of these works by 2.5 times, as the water quality in that section of the Southern Bug is better than expected.

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Water supply for Mykolaiv

It has been more than three years since Russian troops damaged the water pipeline supplying Mykolaiv. Since then, the city of almost half a million people has been without a centralised supply of quality water. Currently, Mykolaiv residents receive water from a backup source, which raises many questions about the quality of this water and the salt content in it. The salt water damaged 1,200 kilometres of the city's water supply network. Borys Dudenko, director of «Mykolaivvodokanal», said that it is impossible to replace the entire length of the network that was damaged by salt water. As of August 2024, only about 3 kilometres of the network had been replaced.

All this time, representatives of state and local authorities were looking for ways to restore drinking water supply in Mykolaiv. The final solution was found in 2024: a new water supply line would be laid from Nova Odesa, and the money was allocated from the state budget.

The regional recovery service even selected contractors who will work according to the principle of «design-build». They are three companies, each of which is responsible for one of the three work areas: «Ukrtransmist», «Rostdorstroi» and «Avtostrada». However, later both the client and the construction contractor were changed. The customer for the construction of the new water pipeline was the Service for Infrastructure Restoration and Development in Dnipropetrovsk Region, and the contractor was the group of companies «Avtostrada».

The future water pipeline for Mykolaiv is expected to be built and launched by autumn 2025, said Serhii Sukhomlyn, head of the State Agency for Reconstruction. Back during a conference in Berlin in 2024, First Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Oleksandr Korniienko, answering a question from NikVesti, said that the lack of drinking water in Mykolaiv was one of the biggest problems in Ukraine that the state should solve in the near future. And President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has ordered the construction of a new water supply system to provide Mykolaiv with drinking water «under the fast track option» — drinking water should be available by the summer of 2025. The government has already approved the programme.

Solar power plants are going to be installed on the water supply system for Mykolaiv, which will reduce the cost of water tariffs for the city's residents, said Vitalii Kim, head of the RMA. At the same time, the contractor «Autostrada» explained that they decided to lay a new water supply system for Mykolaiv from Nova Odesa, as it is the «closest site with good quality drinking water». They also showed photos of the construction of the new water supply system.

Still need more purified water

Although a new water supply system for Mykolaiv is promised to be built by autumn 2025, this does not guarantee that the city will immediately receive drinking water, as a new water treatment system needs to be built, Kristina Mikulova, head of the European Investment Bank's Eastern Europe Regional Centre, told NikVesti.

At the same time, Deputy Mayor of Mykolaiv and head of the city's recovery working group Serhii Koreniev said that the Mykolaiv Recovery Agency is working to upgrade the wastewater treatment plant and launch it simultaneously with the new water supply system. And Vitalii Kim, head of the Mykolaiv Regional Water Authority, said he did not want to rush to take out a large loan for the construction of water treatment facilities for Mykolaiv, despite the EIB's readiness to allocate more than €100 million.

Later, it became known that the State Agency for the Restoration and Development of Infrastructure is currently upgrading the water treatment system for Mykolaiv on behalf of the government.

Together with the constructed water pipeline, this will allow the city to launch a centralised drinking water supply in August 2025, said Serhii Sukhomlyn, head of the State Agency for Infrastructure Recovery and Development.