On July 4, as part of a working visit to the Odessa region, the President of Ukraine arrived at the Odessa Port Plant Joint-Stock Company, where he met the management and some representatives of local business.
This is my first time at the Odessa Port Plant. I always wanted to see what it is. I see that the plant is in excellent condition. I would like to believe that you will not stop there. Increase by 44% of salary. Increased number of jobs. But I know that your potential is higher, because 4.5 thousand people worked here, and now - 3 thousand. That is a great potential for the return of our specialists.
Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine
Nikolay Sinitsa, Director of the Odessa Port Plant OJSC, spoke about the current state of the plant and the measures taken for its development. According to the director of the enterprise, major repairs of production facilities have begun, and for the first time in the last five years, exports of Ukrainian chemical products to the plant have resumed. Due to this, qualified personnel began to return to the enterprise.
Today, our plant is actively emerging from the crisis in which it was. Thanks to toll raw materials, we breathed new life into the OPP. We see that the toll model allows not only to maintain the plant in a relatively working condition, but also with proper management, which helped us to develop and recover after downtime. In less than a year, the record number of exported products reached the record for the last 5 years, we began an overhaul of units for the production of ammonia and urea, and started repaying debts towards NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine.
Nikolay Sinitsa, Director of the Odessa Port Plant OJSC
OPP was idle since the end of April, 2018. His work was stopped due to a breach of the contract with Ukrtransgaz by the supplier, the All-Ukrainian Energy Company. OPZ called toll work the only possible option to resume work in the face of the failure of privatization attempts and the accumulated debt for gas to Naftogaz of Ukraine, which exceeds UAH 1.5 billion.
At the end of July, OPZ began pre-commissioning works and, since the beginning of August, release of ammonia and urea. The plant started operating under a contract for processing toll raw materials from Agro Gas Trading. According to Alexander Gorbunenko, CEO of Agro Gas Trading, the agreement with OPZ was signed by December 1, 2019. It provides for the supply of at least 240 million cubic meters of natural gas for four months.
The urea produced by the plant will be dedicated to exports, but the company is ready to negotiate its supply to the domestic market. Thus, at least 250,000 tons of urea are planned to be shipped to foreign markets, another 30,000 tons can be sold domestically. It is also planned to supply 32,000 tons of ammonia to the domestic market.
The Odessa Port Plant is one of the most powerful chemical enterprises in Ukraine; it can produce over 1 million tons of ammonia and 600 thousand tons of urea per year.
The Odessa Port Plant is in the agenda of privatisations of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Last January, the Azerbaijani state company SOCAR discussed their possible involvement in the upcoming privatization of the plant and they also inspected the production capacity.
