“Nairit” led to close-out

We have information that the British Jacobs company completed its environmental audit in Nairit and the conclusion was submitted to the government.

Let us remember that this company by the request of the Russian Itera Group had started conducting financial audit in Nairit in order to clarify the modernization of the plant. According to our sources, this time the audit was initiated by the minister of energy Armen Movsisyan. In the beginning of August Movsisyan said that after the conduct of the environmental audit and after receiving the summary of the results from the British company they will make the final decision about the re-launch. We have information that the results of the audit on part of the British company are quite hopeless and sad. The now former owner of the factory Rhinoville Property Limited was supposed to make a 60 million USD investment and by January 1 of 2009 the factory was supposed to process rubber in a butadiene technology. In this case, it would be possible to increase the monthly 1000 ton rubber production to 2,5 thousand tons. After that every three months the minister would state that soon the factory will function in a butadiene technology. But this didn’t happen and the factory had stopped the production since February 2010. The current conclusion of the British company means that Nairit will not be functioning at least 2-3 years. This means that the factory personnel will be sent home for a non-paid vacation. And most probably they might end up leaving Armenia for other countries seeking employment. And if ideally by miracle the government finds an investor to re-launch the plant it will turn out that we don’t have specialists. But it will be impossible to operate a flammable factory without qualified personnel. The reality is that the goal of the government is to gradually close out the plant. And this environmental audit is a good ground for that. In this case, we will have new Khachik Stamboltsiyans, who will claim that Nairit is dangerous for the air and will jeopardize our coming generations. During the past years, due to ungrateful and irresponsible leaders, we have destroyed the reputation of Nairit; the funds were squandered. Now it’s going to be very difficult to persuade investors to invest in Nairit and make them believe it’s going to be a profitable business. As we have previously said a Russian company is interested in buying Nairit but without its over 100 million debt. Among the actual owners of Nairit the name of the Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan is being circulated. Various specialists have numerously signified the operation of Nairit by saying that it could drastically boost our economy. The associates of Nairit will also agree with this who surely don’t wish to stay unemployed.

By Gayane Khachatryan