Energy Headlines

Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on June, 8 adopted the law “On the development of biofuels production and consumption”.

The Law defines the legal frameworks for biofuels production and consumption in Ukraine and introduces relevant amendments into some legislative acts in terms of tax privileges for development of biofuels production.

The Law states that by 2010 all transport in the Ukrainian cities with the population of over 500,000 each, should use biological fuels as an alternative to traditional ones. The provisions of the Law apply to nine Ukrainian cities: Kyiv, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovs’k, Odesa, Zaporizhya, Lviv, Kryviy Rih, and Mykolayv.

Moreover, it is planned to build 20 biodiesel plants with capacities of 5,000 – 100,000 tones/year in Ukraine by 2010.

The Law also provides for introduction of amendments into the law “On State Budget of Ukraine for 2008”, including compensation of 50% interest rates of resident banks to Ukrainian investors for purchase of equipment, and construction and modernization of biofuels plants.

The Law consists of 16 articles grouped into 6 chapters. The 1^st chapter of the Law defines terms and principles of the national policy in the sphere of biofuels. The 2^nd chapter classifies biofuels, and defines characteristics of biofuels producers and consumers. The 3^rd chapter provides for relevant measures for introduction of mandatory rules of biofuels consumption, regulation of measures for development of new types of biofuels, biofuels sector financing, definition of norms of biofuels production, transportation and storing. The 4^th Chapter defines legislative norms regulating violations in the biofuels industry. The 5^th and 6^th Chapters provides for the conditions of international cooperation in the biofuels sector. The Final Provisions of the Law define the norms for production incentives and recommend relevant amendments in taxation legislative documents in terms of biofuels development in Ukraine.