The Odesa Port-Side Plant plans to return to work from Nov. 1, according to the company’s website.
“The period of five weeks, which will last between the termination of gas supplies under the contract with Agro Gas Trading (AGT) and the launch of the supply of gas under a new contract with Dachex Shipping Pte. Ltd., will be spent by the plant management on annual preventive maintenance of the plant’s equipment, which according to the schedule, it was supposed to start in October,” the enterprise said.
The plant said that AGT at the end of last week notified the company of a decrease in gas supplies due to high prices for natural gas, which is the main raw material for the plant’s production, on the world and Ukrainian markets and the slow dynamics of growth in prices for urea.
In addition, AGT has a debt to the Odesa Port-Side Plant for the manufactured products in the amount of Hr 140 million. As a result, the plant had a debt to Odesagaz, which sent recommendations to the company to stop the plant on its own in order to avoid an emergency stop by the gas distribution company.
“Taking into account these circumstances, the management decided to suspend the operation of the enterprise to prevent excessive expenditure of working capital,” the plant said.
The enterprise said that they have experience in temporary downtime and stoppage of urea production during 2018-2019. The management will focus efforts to maintain human resources, in particular, specialists with competence in the production of urea.
For the period of temporary stoppage of urea production, the main income of the plant will be other types of economic activities, in particular, the transshipment of ammonia supplied by transportation through the ammonia pipeline.
