The United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Fund (URIF), which until now had only one approved project, has approved its largest investment package to date in three new projects – with BGV Group, DTEK, and local communities, into which it will channel more than $60 million of its own funds.
"These new projects are expected to attract up to $1 billion in additional capital from third-party investors," according to a press release issued Friday by the Ministry of Economy and Environment of Ukraine.
Deputy Minister Yehor Perelyhin said these are projects in the fields of energy, critical minerals, and dual-use technologies, each of which is highly relevant to both Ukraine and the United States.
"We have specifically emphasized areas such as energy resilience, the development of new value chains in the critical minerals sector, and the strengthening of the dual-use technology production complex," he said.
According to the press release, in partnership with the Ukrainian company BGV Group Management, led by Henadiy Butkevych, URIF will create a platform for investing in mining projects, which will build a portfolio of early-stage mining projects in various regions of Ukraine. The initial focus will be on identified deposits of rare earth elements, uranium, beryllium, and zirconium.
Together with the U.S. International Finance Corporation (DFC), the Fund will provide debt financing for a project by Rinat Akhmetov's DTEK, Ukraine's largest private energy company, to build energy storage systems with a capacity of 200 MW / 400 MWh at six sites in Ukraine. It is noted that the system is already operational, and its capacity is sufficient to power approximately 600,000 households for two hours.
In addition, URIF is investing in a distributed combined heat and power generation project, which involves the construction and operation of a number of community-level energy hubs. Once commissioned, the facilities will serve thousands of households, particularly in areas where the war has made access to critical energy services difficult, the press release states.
The fund said the new investment package was launched one year after the fund's inception, when Ukraine and the United States each contributed $75 million to its initial capital of $150 million. During this time, URIF has transitioned from establishing its institutional framework to making its first investments. In March of this year, the Fund made its first investment in the Ukrainian dual-use technology company Sine Engineering. In addition, the DFC signed a cooperation agreement with the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) to develop a mechanism for insuring war risks.
