President of Armenia received group of former workers of Nairit chemical plant

ArmInfo. President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian on May 7 received a group of former workers of Nairit chemical plant, holding protests in front of his residency. As the participants of the protests noted, during the meeting with the President they, once again, referred to the need to restart chemical plant.

Already at a meeting with the head of state, ex-employees of the chemical plant presented to the President their complaints related to "violation of their rights during the trial". Today, as they reported, in the courts of Armenia there are lawsuits from 132 plant employees who demand the cancellation of contracts signed with Nairit-2, for which they refused fines and singing for non-payment of salaries and agreed only to receive salaries. According to the former director of the chemical plant Karen Israelyan, the amount of fines and penalties that "Nairit" was obliged to pay for non-payment of wages for a long period of time, amounts to about $ 15 million.

According to the results of the meeting, the workers of the plant informed that the President listened to their arguments and said that he would consult with the chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council of Armenia Gagik Harutyunyan, promising to keep the issue in the center of attention.

To recall, the chemical giant of Armenia - the Nairit plant has been idle since March 2010. The enterprise completely stopped working in 2014. The total debt of the enterprise approached the mark of 50 billion drams (about $ 130 million). The court of Yerevan's Shengavit administrative district at the end of November 2016 declared Nairit Plant CJSC bankrupt on the basis of the suit filed by the Electric Network of Armenia. In general, the plant has 292 lenders. The largest lenders are the Ministry of Finance of Armenia (about 11 billion AMD), the State Revenue Committee (10 billion), Yerevan Thermal Power Plant, Gazprom Armenia (about 23 billion AMD) and Nairit-2 (6 billion AMD), which and entered the board of creditors.

Until the end of the 80s, the plant's products accounted for 10-12% of the world synthetic rubber market. In 2006, 90% of shares of Nairit were sold to the British consortium Rhainoville Property Limited. The consortium owns 89.999% of the shares of JSC Nairit Plant, RA Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources - 4,496%, ArmRosgazprom JSC - 3.596, Yerevan Electric TPP - 1.907%. The fixed assets of the plant and the main shareholder of Rhinoville Property Limited were pledged under the loan of Intergasbank and transferred to the bank's ownership as a result of a non-repayment of the loan. The loan for $ 70 million was granted in 2006 on the security of the plant for a period of 5 years - until the end of December 2011, at 12.5% per annum. In 2015, with the assistance of Jacobs Consultancy specialists, the WB commissioned the Armenian government to conduct a financial and technical audit of the Nairit plant. According to WB estimates, the restart of "Nairit" seems inappropriate, since it requires at least $ 250 million in capital investments. But even in case of investors, the WB experts doubt that the products of the plant will find a buyer and will be competitive. The WB auditors came to the conclusion that in the conditions of the production process based on both butadiene and acetylene, Nairit's products will have a rather high cost, including due to the considerable wear and tear of a significant part of the company's fixed assets. Most experts believe that the results of the World Bank audit should be considered as a recommendation to the bankruptcy process of the plant, which, in fact, happened.