Odesa Port Plant privatization is being deliberately discredited. AGT rejects manipulation

The campaign to discredit Agro Gas Trading — and, as a consequence, the privatization auction of Odesa Port Plant (OPP) — is intensifying. A series of online publications are circulating mutually contradictory accusations against AGT and its co-owners.

Over the past few days, several online platforms have promoted two opposite narratives about AGT’s participation in the upcoming auction. First, the company was publicly labeled a “front vehicle” for Kernel Group — another private player in the market for agricultural logistics and mineral fertilizers — with claims that AGT’s participation in privatization is merely a way to secure Kernel’s informal influence over the asset.

Now, a different version is being pushed into the public space: that AGT is allegedly part of a multi-layered scheme designed to return OPP under the control of structures linked to sanctioned businessman Dmytro Firtash. These claims are built on speculation about historic business contacts of unrelated third parties and assumptions about “hidden management,” without providing a single legally meaningful fact of corporate control or shared asset ownership.

Agro Gas Trading firmly rejects both narratives as false, manipulative, and harmful to the company’s commercial interests and non-property rights. Neither narrative has any legal or economic basis. Both serve the same purpose: to present AGT not as an independent market participant genuinely interested in rebuilding strategic Ukrainian industrial assets, but at best as an instrument of someone else’s agenda.

This is not a discussion about industrial development or effective management of a state asset. This is an attempt to undermine the very idea of a competitive privatization of Odesa Port Plant by discrediting one of the potential investors. The nature of these attacks is clearly orchestrated.

Agro Gas Trading reiterates: the company operates strictly within Ukrainian law and is not controlled by any outside group — financial-industrial, political, or oligarchic. AGT’s participation in the OPP privatization is not a “procedural workaround,” not a “technical cover,” and not a “temporary role.” It is a strategic decision, based on direct production experience and a clear understanding of the plant’s potential.

Publicly portraying AGT as an extension of any alleged “power group,” in the absence of any legal evidence — including court rulings based on proven findings of a competent investigation — is a direct intrusion into the company’s business reputation and the personal reputation of its co-owners. It violates the basic principle of presumption of innocence, as well as Ukrainian and European standards on the protection of dignity, honor, and business reputation.

Agro Gas Trading is compelled to respond to the ongoing circulation of knowingly distorted, inaccurate, incomplete, or manipulative statements in the legal domain. If the company’s official position continues to be ignored, we will, within the timelines set by law, seek judicial remedies including demands for retraction, removal of false and misleading information, and compensation for damages, in accordance with Ukrainian legislation and international standards for the protection of business reputation.

We again call on online media, platform owners, and public commentators to refrain from spreading unverified claims and personalized speculation. This practice not only misleads the public — it also creates real risks for disrupting a transparent, competitive privatization process of OPP, which is clearly in the public interest.

Background

Agro Gas Trading is a private Ukrainian supplier of natural gas, mineral fertilizers, and chemical products, operating at the intersection of the energy, chemical, and agribusiness sectors. The company is committed to transparency, compliance, and open cooperation with state institutions, partners, and local communities.

In 2019–2021, AGT supplied approximately 1.42 billion cubic meters of natural gas to OPP. On the plant’s production lines, this enabled the output of roughly 1.735 million tons of urea and 187,000 tons of ammonia, more than 90% of which was exported. AGT initiated additional payments in favor of the plant, which allowed funds to be directed toward settling OPP’s outstanding liabilities to Naftogaz Group.

Cooperation with AGT made it possible for the plant to preserve more than 3,000 jobs and raise employee salaries by more than 20%. In addition, the company ensured the payment of hundreds of millions of hryvnias in taxes to budgets at various levels.