Energoatom saves USD76 million through online tendering

Ukraine has 15 nuclear units in commercial operation at four sites - Khmelnitsky, Rovno, South Ukraine and Zaporozhe - which are all operated by state-owned Energoatom. The company said today that it made 5776 purchases through the online procurement system, and that these had cost UAH18.73 billion. Of these, 5055 were made under the procedures outlined by legislation on public procurement on open tenders; the remaining 721 met the "sub-threshold" of the law, it said.

"At the end of 2019, savings (the difference between the expected purchase price and the offer made by the winning bidder) in Energoatom tenders amounted to UAH1.86 billion,” Energoatom said. “Such significant savings were achieved primarily thanks to Energoatom continuous and systematic work to attract a wider range of potential suppliers to participate in the auction. The result of this work was lively competition between bidders."

As the operator of all the country's nuclear power plants, Energoatom said it has to ensure procurement meets its need for technologically advanced goods, works and services that come from bidders who can meet stringent requirements. There are however a "fairly limited number" of participants that qualify as bidders in these respects, it said, "which is why the competitive bidding indicator is high and indicates the success of the measures taken to attract more new suppliers in order to achieve maximum savings and efficiency in procurement".

In total, 3157 separate participants took part in Energoatom tenders through the electronic procurement system last year, of which 1263 (40%) were participating for the first time. In all, about 13,000 bids were submitted.