In the 2 years since the confiscation of the Mykolaiv Alumina Plant, the State Property Fund has done nothing to solve the environmental problem with sludge

Mykolaiv Alumina Plant, archive photo

For two years of management, the State Property Fund has not helped the Mykolaiv Alumina Plant, which was confiscated from Russian oligarch Oleh Derypaska, to solve a critical environmental problem related to the emergency state of sludge field irrigation systems, which became known in the summer of 2022.

This became known during the final press conference of the head of the Mykolaiv Regional Environmental Agency Vitalii Kim and his deputies, according to NikVesti.

As you know, in March 2024, Ukraine completed the nationalisation of the Mykolaiv Alumina Plant, which was part of the «RUSAL» group of companies, and since then it has been managed by the State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPFU). On 20 March 2024, on its website, the SPFU expressed an unequivocal position on its plans to sell the confiscated Russian property, the proceeds of which «would be used to support and restore Ukraine». However, since then, there has been no movement on the sale of the plant.

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With the outbreak of full-scale war in February 2022, the company stopped producing alumina, and its corporate rights have been under arrest since June 2022.

Out of five thousand workers, about 400 are currently employed there, who are involved in the maintenance of sludge pits covering an area of about 400 hectares and the preservation of the company's property, said Oleksii Medvid, head of Mykolaiv Alumina Plant, in a commentary to NikVesti.

At the beginning of the war, as a result of Russian shelling, the plant's equipment for dust suppression and drainage of slurry water in the sludge pits was damaged. As of the spring of 2024, it was reported that between August 2022 and September 2023, 12 cases of uncontrolled dusting from sludge pits No. 1 and No. 2 at Mykolaiv Alumina Plant were recorded at MGZ. It should be noted that the so-called sludge fields at Mykolaiv Alumina Plant contain 49 million tonnes of waste stored on an area of about 400 hectares on the territory of Mykolaiv Alumina Plant.

For more information on the situation at Mykolaiv Alumina Plant, see «Trapped in stagnation: what are the chances of Mykolaiv Alumina Plant after nationalisation».

During a press conference held on 25 December by Vitalii Kim, head of the RMA, a journalist from NikVesti asked whether the company had received financial support to repair equipment at the sludge storage facilities and about the overall environmental situation there.

«The situation is stable, and environmental problems may arise closer to spring,» said Vitalii Kim.

His deputy Heorhii Reshetilov assured that despite the complexity, the situation at Mykolaiv Alumina Plant is under control, but they cannot predict what will happen next.

«The environmental situation is difficult but still under control. What to expect next is also a complicated question, and it will depend on many factors. That is, now, despite the transition to state ownership, the plant does not have sufficient funds to resolve water-related issues. The sprinkler system that used to moisten the sludge fields (irrigation system) is badly damaged. There are issues after the shelling of the dam and where the sludge water is, these issues remain acute. During all these years of war, we have managed to prevent environmental disasters, and we expect that in 2026 we will also succeed. But the problems need to be solved and require significant investments. And the plant does not have the money to do this now,» said Heorhii Reshetilov.

Answering the correspondent's question about communication with the government regarding the situation at the plant, the Deputy Chairman of the RMA said that the only possible source of funding for the plant today is the state budget of Ukraine, but Mykolaiv Alumina Plant does not receive any funds.

«The Ministry of Ecology is only involved in this in a monitoring or control capacity. We say that the management is carried out by the State Property Fund, and the funding can either come from the plant's operations, which are currently impossible, or from certain debts owed to the plant, or from funding through the State Property Fund. We can talk a lot about the possibilities, but the plant does not have these funds at the moment,» said Heorhii Reshetilov.

Answering a question from NikVesti about the process of preparing for the sale of the plant, the head of the region, Vitalii Kim, said that the State Property Fund is still «analysing the market».

«There is no active issue of negotiations, the State Property Fund is currently analysing the market and what can be done about it. We are fully cooperating, including submitting our proposals, and there are several options. What we want is the strategic construction of a new aluminium smelter, the second is the sale, and the third is cooperation with European plants. This is a question for the State Property Fund, because they are the management body,» said Vitalii Kim.

Hello! I am Kateryna Sereda, the author of this article.

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Is Mykolaiv Alumina Plant an environmental «time bomb»?

The plant, which has been out of operation for three years, has become many times more dangerous for the environment than when it was operating at full capacity. This position was expressed by the head of the State Environmental Inspectorate, Ihor Zubovych, in response to an information request from NikVesti regarding the situation at the plant since the start of the full-scale war.

According to the information received by NikVesti from the State Environmental Inspectorate, on 19 July 2022, Mykolaiv Alumina Plant reported that shelling in the area of sludge pit №2 had made it difficult to treat the surface of the stacked red sludge in the sludge pit bowls, which had led to risks of red sludge dusting.

The auger truck that used to shovel the sludge in the fields is no longer in operation, archive photo

As a result, the company treats only a third of the area of sludge pit №2: «military operations in the area of sludge pit №2 and damage to the dust suppression system lines, making it difficult to repair them; inability to maintain the dust suppression system due to the blocking of the company's accounts. At the same time, sludge pit №1 is being maintained in full by wetting the territory using the company's own resources».

Twice in August 2022, once in September 2022 and once in January 2023, Mykolaiv Alumina Plant reported that due to increased wind speeds, uncontrolled dusting from one of the sludge pits was observed, which could cause contamination of land outside the sanitary protection zone. At that time, the company put in place a dust suppression system at sludge pit No. 2.

At the same time, due to a lack of personnel, the company was unable to carry out dust suppression works on the beaches of sludge №1.

Uncontrolled dusting of sludge from the company's sludge fields continued in 2023: in May, July, August (twice) and September (4 times).

Until July 2022, maintenance of the sludge №2 dust suppression system, including the restoration of the system after shelling, was carried out by a contractor that stopped providing services because MMPP had not paid them for almost six months.

In the spring of 2023, the company's sludge ponds became unsafe:

1. The level of sludge water in the working bowl of sludge pit №1 exceeded the permissible level, which threatens to pollute the waters of the Bug Estuary, which is 300 metres from the sludge field.
2. The critical level of accumulation of sub-sludge is in sludge pit №2, which has a higher alkalinity than sludge pit №1. Overfilling of this storage facility will lead to contamination of the adjacent agricultural land.
3. There is still a problem of significant dusting of sludge in field №2, which can cause air pollution. This is due to the fact that there is a «dry» method of accumulation that requires constant monitoring and surface moisture.
4. The sprinkler system for dust suppression (necessary to moisten the sludge), which was in place at the plant, was damaged and out of order during the hostilities.

In July 2025, the State Ecological Inspectorate of the South-Western District informed the Minister of Economy and Environment that the situation with the waste of the Mykolaiv Alumina Plant was deteriorating. Environmentalists warned of the threat of sludge ponds breaching and polluting the Bug Estuary.