Lviv's municipal water utility, Lvivvodokanal, has awarded three design contracts for the renovation of aerotanks at the city's wastewater treatment facilities to Intechengineering, a Kharkiv-based company whose owner and his long-time business partner continue to operate equipment production in Russia, according to an investigation published 1 October by NGL.media.
Key takeaways
- Lvivvodokanal commissioned three design projects for the renovation of aerotanks at the city's wastewater treatment plants, and Intechengineering won all three, according to NGL.media.
- The three contracts totalled UAH 8.2 million, per NGL.media.
- Lviv's wastewater plants treat about 400,000 cubic metres per day, according to NGL.media.
- The facilities were built in the 1960s–1970s and rely on mechanical and biological treatment with discharge to the Poltva River, per NGL.media.
What happened
Reporting published 1 October by NGL.media says that last year the municipal enterprise of the Lviv city council, Lvivvodokanal, commissioned three draft projects to renovate aerotanks in the city's wastewater treatment facilities. Aerotanks are concrete reservoirs that receive sewage after primary treatment and form the core of biological cleansing, the report notes.
In all three procurements, the winner was a private enterprise, Intechengineering, registered in Kharkiv in 2018, which had not previously taken part in state procurements. The three Lvivvodokanal contracts, worth a combined UAH 8.2 million, were the first budget-financed orders in the company's history, according to NGL.media.
The investigation links the Intechengineering director and owner, Mykhailo Tits, and his long-term business partner, Yurii Meshengisser, to the Ukrainian-Russian consortium RPE Ecopolymer, which has run a wastewater equipment plant in Russia's Kaluga region since 1991 and as of 2025 was assembling equipment for wastewater treatment facilities in Krasnoyarsk, NGL.media reports.
NGL.media says it identified the situation four months before publication and delayed the story at the request of security forces, who are now examining the agreements of Lvivvodokanal. The outlet also reports that Lviv's municipal utilities have previously allowed other contractors with Russian or Belarusian ties to work, including on a draft project to build a biogas station in the city.
Specification read
Restating the reported scale in buyer units: the Lviv facility treats about 400,000 m³/day, equivalent to roughly 106 MGD (general industry range, not from the sources), serving a city population reported as a million residents in NGL.media. The plant follows a conventional train: screening for solid removal, primary settling for residual solids and fats, biological degradation in aerotanks using aerobes, secondary settling to separate activated sludge, and discharge of clarified effluent to the Poltva River. The design contracts awarded to Intechengineering target the aerotank stage, i.e. the biological reactor at the heart of secondary treatment, where diffused-aeration system retrofits and basin reconfiguration typically deliver the largest BOD and ammonia reductions for a fixed capex. Effluent BOD, COD and ammonia limits and hydraulic load were not reported in NGL.media; secondary-biological retrofits at this scale generally target BOD down to 15–25 mg/L and total suspended solids below 15 mg/L (general industry range, not from the sources) before disinfection. If your plant looks like a 1960s–1970s activated-sludge facility handling on the order of 100 MGD (≈400,000 m³/day) with ageing aeration basins and tightening effluent consents, the Lviv tender illustrates that the supplier-selection phase, not just the equipment phase, is now a procurement-risk question on its own. For operator and engineering context on the equipment class behind this retrofit, see the Municipal product hub and the Cost Benchmarks per MGD for Water Treatment Infrastructure 2026 reference. For a step-up path when basin volume is constrained, the Package Treatment Plant: 2026 Engineering Buyer's Guide and the Small Community Wastewater System in Russia: 2026 Engineering Guide are also relevant background.
FAQ
What was actually awarded in the Lviv wastewater contracts?
Three design contracts for the renovation of aerotanks at the city's wastewater treatment facilities, totalling UAH 8.2 million, were awarded to Intechengineering, according to NGL.media. They are design-stage orders, not construction or equipment supply.
Which part of the treatment train is being redesigned?
The aerotanks, i.e. the biological-reactor stage that follows mechanical screening and primary settling, per NGL.media. Final effluent still discharges to the Poltva River after secondary settling.
How large is the Lviv plant in standard buyer units?
Flow is reported at about 400,000 m³/day, roughly 106 MGD (general industry range, not from the sources), serving about a million residents, per NGL.media.
Are there any reported lead times or unit-cost benchmarks for the design phase?
Neither the contract duration, the design deliverables schedule, nor a per-MGD design fee is reported in NGL.media. General industry design-fee ranges for municipal biological-stage retrofits are highly project-specific and not given in the source.
