18 Feb 2020 18:02

Uralchem to spend 1.6 bln rubles on developing Perm site in 2020

PERM. Feb 18 (Interfax) - Uralchem is planning to invest 1.623 billion rubles (including VAT) in the development of its branch PMU (Perm), 2.3 times more than last year, the branch's press service said.

The branch will concentrate on two investment projects for packaging goods and on planned capital repairs to the company's production capacity.

Uralchem is planning to boost the plant's soft-container packaging capacity for urea to 333,000 tonnes a year; to that end, a packaging section was built as part of the 2019 investment program, and next to it a loading zone was outfitted for transferring bags of urea to open cars. Commissioning of the zone is expected this year. Additionally, the creation of an area for preparing open wagons and the construction of new rails will continue this year.

Another investment project envisages a new line for packaging urea in 10-50kg bags. PMU said that the need for the project arose in connection with labor protection standards in the European Union, to which Uralchem delivers its products. Customers there handle bags of smaller sizes.

This year's shutdown maintenance at PMU will last over a month. The ammonia facility's initial-reforming furnace will be overhauled, the steam turbine management system will be modernized, and a stationary-vibromonitoring system will be created at the urea facility.

PMU has two main products: liquid synthetic ammonia and prilled urea. Uralchem's production assets also include Azot in Berezniki, KCKK (Kirovo-Chepetsk), and VMF (Voskresensk).