New customer and contractor to build water supply system in Mykolaiv: works are expected to be completed in August 2025

Construction of a new water supply system for Mykolaiv, photo: «Avtostrada»

A new water pipeline to Mykolaiv and water intake from the Southern Bug near Nova Odesa are expected to be completed by July 2025. These works will be carried out by a new customer and contractor.

The construction of the new water pipeline was commissioned by the Service for Infrastructure Restoration and Development in Dnipropetrovsk region, according to NikVesti.

On 10 April, the Service signed three agreements for the construction of the water supply system with a new contractor, the group of companies «Avtostrada», without tenders. It will now carry out all the work on the construction of the water intake and main water supply system for the city: at the first stage of work, at the second stage of work, and at the third stage of work. The total cost of the water pipeline construction was reduced by 2 billion hryvnias to 6.2 billion hryvnias. Prices for construction materials have not been made public.

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According to the contracts, the water intake and water pipeline are to be completed by 6 June 2025. However, Maxim Shkil, the founder of the «Avtostrada» group of companies, said that all work should be completed later than the set date — by August 2025. Design is being developed in parallel with construction, he added.

«This is an absolutely record pace for an infrastructure project of this scale. Despite the fact that the project is complex, it is quite real for the Autostrada team: the Autostrada Design Institute develops technical solutions that the construction divisions immediately implement. We work on the design&build principle, which ensures full synchronisation of the work of engineers and builders and significantly reduces the lead time. No subcontractors — only internal resources. At the same time, Autostrada's production facilities are operating 24/7 at the water supply system construction site: concrete and asphalt plants, laboratory complexes. The quality of materials and works is controlled at every stage of production,» said Maksym Shkil.

As a reminder, on 7 April, the Infrastructure Restoration and Development Service in Mykolaiv Oblast cancelled three contracts with contractors that were to build a new water supply system for Mykolaiv. The respective supplementary agreements on termination of contracts were signed with «Avtostrada», «Ukrtransmist» and «Rostdorstroi».

Read also the article NikVesti « Three years without drinking water: what will the future water supply system look like for Mykolaiv?».

Water supply for Mykolaiv

Almost three years have passed since Russian troops damaged the water supply pipeline that supplied Mykolaiv with water. Since then, the city of almost half a million people has been without a centralised supply of drinking water. Currently, Mykolaiv residents receive water from a backup source, which raises many questions about the quality of the water and the salt content.

The salt water damaged 1,200 kilometres of the city's water supply network. Boris 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 will be laid from Nova Odesa, and the money was allocated from the state budget.

The Regional Reconstruction Service has already 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 «Motorway».

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.

However, the question of the new water supply system's design capacity remains unresolved: on the one hand, there is an opinion that water consumption in Mykolaiv has decreased, and therefore a new calculation needs to be made, and on the other hand, limiting the amount of water can directly affect the future development of the city and its industry.

Back during the conference in Berlin in 224, the First Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Oleksandr Korniienko, answering a question 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 the water tariff for the city's residents, said Vitaliy Kim, head of the Regional Water Company.

At the same time, the contractor «Avtostrada» explained that it was decided to lay a new water supply line for Mykolaiv from New Odesa, as it is the «closest site to the city with good quality drinking water».