Sienkevych reported to the head of Naftogaz about the heat situation in Mykolaiv: «We will change most of the pipes before the heating season»

Mykolayiv City Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych reported to Oleksii Chernyshov, Chairman of the Board of Naftogaz of Ukraine, how the city is preparing for the start of the heating season.

The informal conversation took place during the conference on the restoration of Ukraine in Berlin, reports the correspondent of NikVesti.

During the conversation, the head of the Mykolaiv RMA Vitalii Kim and the former head of the Mykolaiv Regional Council Hanna Zamazieieva were also present. Oleksii Chernyshov asked Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych about the situation with heat supply in Mykolaiv.

«What is the current situation with heating?» asked Oleksii Chernyshov.

«After the last heating season, the CHP began an active working. Now the whole city is almost being interrupted, the pipes are being replaced, they have attracted funding from foreign partners. We help, as a city, we hand over pipes to them, we help with equipment,» said Oleksandr Sienkevych.

«Networks?» Oleksii Chernyshov asked.

«The main problem was with the networks. They have not changed for many years. A large number will be replaced before the heating season. Moreover, we have now separately selected the main pipes. We expect additional funding. Even now, we will sign documents on the transfer of some bad plots to the city. Returns the CHP to the property of the city. And we will replace them with budgetary and extra-budgetary funds. This is the situation,» said the mayor of Mykolaiv. 

It is worth noting that Oleksii Chernyshov in a comment to NikVesti promised to monitor that Mykolaiv CHP was ready for the heating season this year.

How the Mykolaiv CHP failed the heating season in 2023

Excavation of Mykolaiv thermal power station in the center of Mykolaiv, photo from the archive of NikVesti, September 2023.

The 2023-24 heating season in Mykolaiv began on November 14, but Mykolaiv CHP was able to provide heat to residents only at the beginning of December due to numerous accidents on heating networks. The mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Sienkevych, believes that the problems with starting heat will only worsen in the coming years.

After the failure of the heating season and statements by the Mykolaiv RMA about the need for personnel decisions, the CHP began an official investigation to find the culprits.

As of the evening of November 18, 2023, Mykolaiv CHP connected only half of the total number of its consumers in Mykolaiv to heat. At the same time, in September, the CHP reported that it was 92% ready for the start of the heating season.

Excavation of the CHP plant in the center of Mykolaiv, photo from the archive of NikVesti, November 2023

As of the evening of November 20 , dozens of apartment buildings remained without heating in Mykolaiv. In several districts of the city, repair works of heating networks continued. Then the first deputy of Mykolaiv city mayor Vitalii Lukov announced that they plan to connect all residential buildings of Mykolaiv to heat in a few days.

However, on the evening of November 24, there were still more than 400 apartment buildings in the city without heating. The Mykolaiv thermal power plant said that delays in the supply of heat to multi-apartment buildings occurred due to large gusts on the main pipelines of the heating lines.

On November 30, the CHP reported that due to emergency works in three more areas of the city, residents will be left without heating again for some time. However, the company immediately announced the good news — according to forecasters, the weather conditions in Mykolaiv are expected to improve.

Numerous gusts of CHP networks are connected, in particular, with the fact that last heating season the enterprise used salty water from the estuary, which accelerates the corrosion of already outdated pipes. In contrast to this, purified water from wells was poured into «Mykolaivvoblteploenergo», which NikVesti wrote in the article «Winter is near: What will the heating season be like in Mykolaiv?». Thus, the start of both heating seasons began without disruptions and significant accidents in the houses served by the municipal district heat and power company.

At the same time, the Mykolaiv thermal power station reported that during the 2023/2024 heating season, water from the estuary will be poured in only in emergency cases. Thus, the networks of the enterprise are filled with salt water by 8%, while last year the systems were filled with estuarine water by 91%.

The section of Mariupolska Street where the CHP refuses to repair the asphalt, photo NikVesti, March 2024

For six months now, Mykolaiv CHP has not been bringing Mariupolska (Moskovska) Street (from Tsentralnyi Avenue to Chkalova, where repair work was carried out on heating networks last fall. In Mykolaiv CHP, they say that it makes no sense to asphalt the excavated sections of the road along Mariupolska Street at the moment, because after several The section of the network from Dunaieva Street to Sevastopolska Street will be partially replaced.

We will remind you that the director of Mykolaiv Thermal Power Plant (TPP) Dmytro Myroshnychenko submitted a declaration on property and income for 2023. During the year, the official earned 2 million 143 thousand 897 hryvnias. On average, the salary of an official was 178 thousand hryvnias per month (about 4.5 thousand US dollars).

In addition, the Mykolaiv District Administrative Court will consider the case based on the lawsuit filed by the journalist of the online media NikVesti against the Mykolaiv Thermal Power Plant (TPP), which refused to provide information about the salaries of the management during 2023.