Grodno Azot, German co ThyssenKrupp sign contract to build nitric acid workshop
MINSK. Aug 16 (Interfax) - OJSC Grodno Azot, the only producer of nitrogenous fertilizer in Belarus and its largest industrial natural gas consumer, has signed a contract with German company ThyssenKrupp Uhde GmbH to construct a nitric acid workshop.
"A contract was signed for the issuance of a license, for designing, supplying equipment, and rendering services to implement a project to construct a nitric acid workshop with capacity of 1,200 tonnes a day, with the reconstruction of the existing urea-ammonium mixture facility, with the company ThyssenKrupp Uhde GmbH (Dortmund, Germany)," a spokesman for Grodno Azot told Interfax.
According to specialists, the project needs $170 million in financing, and its overall cost is $200 million. Grodno Azot expects to invest $30 million of its own funds in the project, and the rest will come from loans - from foreign sources, in the form of direct investments, and partially from the industrial innovation fund and the Belarusian budget.
"For financing the plan is to use company funds and loans, funds from the country's budget, and foreign investor resources, particularly through joint projects," the Grodno Azot spokesman said.
Once the current urea-ammonium compound facility is rebuilt, production capacities will skyrocket 60% to 400,000 tonnes of nitric acid a year and 1.19 million tonnes of urea-ammonium mixture a year, the spokesman said.
The project will be finished by the end of 2014, and return on investment should be achieved within six years.
According to the investment proposal on Grodno Azot's website, "possible but unlikely risks include the emergence of force majeure circumstances with the Russian Federation on natural gas supplies."
Grodno Azot specializes in producing liquid ammonia, nitrogenous fertilizers (urea, urea-ammonium mixtures, ammonium sulfate), industrial methanol, caprolactam, biodiesel fuel and liquid carbon dioxide. It is the largest industrial consumer of natural gas in Belarus, which it uses as raw material to produce mineral fertilizers and ammonia.
