In wartime conditions, many situations arise when the cunning combinations of all kinds of bigwigs remain behind the scenes. Including in the tender sphere, where there are more and more attempts to hide loose ends.
In this regard, a curious situation has developed with Ukrtransnafta JSC. The managers of this company have become so creative that they order equipment from a Hungarian company without a wavering hand, whose partners have Moscow’s ears sticking out.
The situation turns out to be really not very beautiful.
The story began in June of this year, when Ukrtransnafta announced a tender for the purchase of electric motors for its oil pumping stations.
However, the tender suddenly fell through due to the fact that a certain Hungarian company Extra Service Trading Kft suddenly protested its results, in which the Ukrainian company Scientific and Production Enterprise Ecoenergy Efficiency LLC won. And the tender is unexpectedly (for everyone?) declared invalid...
But after 8 days, Ukrtransnafta unexpectedly announces a new tender , and puts all potential participants in truly draconian conditions. The tender, for which not a single participant company was able to prepare in 42 days, now had to be prepared in 14 days.
And no matter how potential participants in the Ukrtransnafta tender asked, its managers were unshakable and urgently closed the submission of documents.
To understand the situation, why did the tenderers ask for more time? The difficulty is that the new company, as a tender participant, had to develop, prepare, and translate up to 200 pages of documentation into Ukrainian, which was a difficult task for such a short period of time.
Since we are not talking about serial equipment, but about a special project in which the customer specified the individual technical parameters of the equipment, and any manufacturer needed to carry out engineering, which would have taken at least twice as long as the time allotted to the tender participants.
However, the aforementioned company Extra Service Trading Kft from the homeland of Viktor Orban, who “tenderly loves” Ukraine, was somehow easily admitted to the new tender. Yes, yes, the same company that protested the results of the first tender and beat out the Ukrainian company.
That is, Ukrtransnafta does not meet the domestic manufacturer halfway in terms of giving more time to prepare for the tender, and cancels the winner of the first tender from Ukraine, but opens its arms and meets halfway a very strange company from Hungary. Why it’s strange - more on that a little later.
And if during the first tender the consideration of participants’ documents actually lasted 120 days, and, as already mentioned, ended in nothing, then in the second tender the review procedure moved much faster.
It is possible that this was due to the massive exclusion of Ukrainian companies from the second tender, but the fact remains.
Hungarian company Extra Service Trading Kft. in the shortest possible time and in the virtual absence of competition on the afternoon of December 14, it was declared the winner of the tender.
And this decision literally stunned the other participants in the process, since for some reason the Hungarian company was admitted to the second tender with a lot of violations that would not be forgiven for Ukrainian companies.
Moreover, the Hungarian company did not even bother with translating the documentation into Ukrainian . But for some reason, Ukrtransnafta quickly turned a blind eye to this...
Actually, even after the first tender, representatives of Ukrainian companies, who did not have time to prepare for the second tender due to the “principles” of Ukrtransnafta, began to suspect that the winner of the tender was already known, and its official designation would not take long. And so it happened.
On the one hand, at first glance, everything seemed to be fine with the Hungarian company , which entered the tender with equipment from the Italian manufacturer Nidec ASI SpA. A company from the EU gives the impression of a reliable partner, etc.
But this is only at first glance. According to the statutory documents, the Hungarian company Extra Service Trading Kft began its economic activities on February 25, 2022, that is, the day after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
And at the same time, a certain “partner” Denis Kuzmenko appeared on the horizon of the Hungarian company, a personality also very remarkable in all respects.
Mr. Kuzmenko is simultaneously the director of the Lithuanian companies REMTIKA and UAB “SK INTRA BALTIC” - the latter company has repeatedly appeared in the media as working as a supplier to the Ukrainian GTS operator and trading with Russian companies.
That is, the Lithuanian companies UAB “SK INTRA BALTIC” and UAB “Remtika” are united by one common director , Denis Kuzmenko, who trades with the aggressor country . And the aforementioned Hungarian company Extra Service Trading Kft, which won the Ukrtransnafta tender and threw Ukrainian companies out of the tender, tied its fate with this gentleman...
The high degree of trust between Kuzmenko and the Hungarian company is evidenced by the fact that their contract supplies include an electric motor that costs around 1,000 euros, and its price is 24,000.00 euros. And according to the contract, all disputes between the Hungarian company and the Lithuanian companies of Mr. Kuzmenko should be considered for some reason by the Arbitration Court in New York, which simply directly indicates the fictitiousness of the contract.
Let us remind you that the cost of the tender won by the Hungarians is more than 1.5 million euros. This also begs the question: why should the Hungarian company Extra Service Trading Kft, which began its economic activities on February 25, 2022, indicate Russian on its website in addition to the Ukrainian language, if it does not plan to cooperate with Russia?
What follows is even more interesting. What will Ukrtransnafta get by declaring a strange Hungarian company with an incomprehensible background as the winner?
As mentioned above, the customer’s equipment has individual parameters, that is, in other words, Ukrtransnafta needs to replace old Russian electric motors with new ones. What does the winner of the tender, the Hungarian company Extra Service Trading Kft, offer?
In the official price lists we see that the company offers seemingly European equipment manufactured by the Italian company Nidec ASI SpA But the devil, as always, is in the details...
At the end of 2018, Russian President Putin, together with the director of the mentioned Italian company, set up a factory for the production of the same electric motors that Ukrtransnafta JSC decided to purchase from the Hungarian company.
Moreover, the Italians transferred technical documentation and rights to produce electric motors to Nidec ASI SpA in Russia.
And now the Italian company working with Russia has become a de facto partner of Ukrtransnafta in the production of electric motors thanks, of course, to the “best price” at the tender, as a “plant producing the original product” that needs to be replaced...
On the website of the Italian company Nidec ASI SpA there is an existing office in Moscow “Russia Nidec ASI SpA & AO Nidec ASI VEI Neverovskogo st., 10, building 4 121170, Moscow, Russiaphone: +7 495 640-90-03”.
The manager of the Russian office, during a telephone conversation, immediately offers a similar electric motor in any part of the world, either in Minsk or in Ukraine, also mentioning that there are different options - “black”, “gray” and others.
To confirm his words, the manager suggested looking at the Russian company Nidec ASI Russia, on whose website there is information on the main page that 60% of the shares belong to Nidec ASI SpA (Italy). And in the news section of February 23, 2023 on this website there is “Congratulations on February 23, dear defenders, the JSC Nidek ASI VEI company congratulates all Defenders of the Fatherland on the holiday!” ...
By the way, the Italian manufacturer bypassed the certificate of business relations with the Russian Federation since 2016, which, according to the customer’s terms, must be published on the tender site, by substituting a Hungarian company that has been operating since 2022.
And perhaps the managers of Ukrtransnafta simply did not know all the ins and outs of those for whose sake the Ukrainian companies were thrown out of the tender. But perhaps, given the opportunity, they will still, with the help of regulatory or competent authorities, take a closer look at new “partners” who have so successfully found themselves long ago in the “Russian world” and feel good there. But here, as they say, it would not be too late...
