Bridgestone Associates today announced signing an agreement with Broad Street Capital Group to perform a detailed technical evaluation on the reconstruction and/or replacement of a large combined heat and power plant at the State Enterprise Production Association Southern machine-building plant, named after A.M. Makarov (PA Yuzhmash), in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. Broad Street Capital is the exclusive financial advisers to Yuzhmash for the project.
Under the terms of the agreement, Bridgestone Associates will take a lead technical role in performing a detailed evaluation of the existing CHP plant and its equipment, and develop detailed alternatives for its reconstruction and/or replacement. The existing gas fired plant serves the Yuzhmash Factory, a former ballistics missile manufacturing plant, with steam, hot water (for heating) and electricity. The CHP plant also serves a local hospital, a sports complex and approximately 200,000 local residents with district heating.
The plant was originally constructed in the late 1940s by the Soviet Union. Some of the existing equipment that is still operating was taken from British and German warships after the war.
The technical and engineering evaluation to be performed by Bridgestone Associates is part of a $696,000 technical, economic and financial feasibility study, which was awarded to Broad Street Capital to be used by the project sponsors in order to determine the best allocation of resources and provide detailed project information to potential lenders, equity investors and government officials. The study is being funded in part by a $556,929 grant from the United States Trade Development Agency (USTDA).
“This will be a very interesting and challenging project,” said Martin Anderson, president of Bridgestone Associates. “The existing CHP plant is in a very poor state of repair with minimal metering and measurement devices, so determining historic load profiles and energy use on which to base a new design will be difficult.”
Mr. Anderson continued: “The existing plant uses natural gas as its primary fuel, but the price of natural gas, which is imported from Russia, has risen considerably and the sales prices for energy, which are regulated, have not kept pace. We will be investigating alternative fuels such as biomass and coal to see if a technical alternative can be found that is economic, meets environmental requirements, and can be financed.”