Wednesday, February 13 2019 14:20

ArmInfo.Residents of Alaverdi city blocked the Yerevan-Tbilisi Interstate Railway from 10:00am. They are protesting against the closure of the Alaverdi Copper  Smelter and are demanding that the enterprise's work be restored.

On October 19, 2018, the company suspended the production of blister  copper due to serious violations of environmental standards. As part  of the requirements of the Labor Code, notifications of staff  reductions were submitted to all company employees by the end of  October. In February, the Council of Elders of the City sent a letter  to the Prime Minister, in which the deteriorating day by day  socio-economic situation in the city was presented and asked to  freeze the loan obligations of the plant's employees, and also decide  on the future of the enterprise itself. As the participants of the  picket note, without receiving a response to the appeal, today the  residents of Alaverdi came out to protest.

As the employees of the enterprise told ArmInfo, on February 28 the  employment relations with the plant employees will be terminated.  From October to today, they were paid 2/3 of their salaries. "For 3  months now we have been fed with promises - the company's management  is ready to restart, the government doesn't mind. We demand that the  government, the owner of the enterprise finally make the final  decision on the future of the plant," said Garegin Antashyan,  employee of the Alaverdi copper smelter.

The governor of the Lori region Andrei Ghukasyan has already met with  the protesters. He promised to take steps. Nevertheless, the  company's employees are ready to spend a sedentary protest at the  interstate railway at night. "630 employees of the plant were left  without means of subsistence, we ask you to decide whether to declare  restarting the enterprise or mark a decisive end. "If the government  is unable to provide us with work, we will determine our next steps,"  said Antashyan, hinting that a wave of migration from the region will  rise. Unemployment and uncertainty have already led to the fact that  many are in search of work in the Russian Federation and Ukraine.

To recall, on October 19, the work of the Alaverdi copper smelter was  suspended for the 4th time during its 250-year history. The main  cause of environmental problems, violations of permissible emissions  of sulfur dioxide by the enterprise, as a result of which the company  was fined 380 million drams ($ 700 thousand) and it was ordered to  reduce emissions by 90% until December 25 of the current year. The  problem is complicated by the fact that the enterprise's property  complex is secured by a loan of $ 500 million for the development of  the large Teghut copper-molybdenum deposit, the operation of which  was also discontinued due to environmental problems last year after  co-financing was suspended by one of the foreign lenders. Under these  conditions, servicing the loan becomes extremely unaffordable for the  enterprise and a serious decrease in the level of profitability of  the Alaverdi plant, in fact, may lead to its bankruptcy.  According  to independent experts, the company had previously worked to bypass  tough environmental rules thanks to informal agreements with the  relevant government agencies in order to ensure the production and  export of blister copper and the preservation of jobs.  To note,  Vallex Group (Vallex Group) was established in 1998 and includes 20  subsidiaries and affiliates.  Among them is Teghut CJSC, founded in  May 2006, 100% of the shares of CJSC belong to Teghut Investments  Limited of Cyprus, 100% of whose voting shares in turn belong to  Armenian Copper Program CJSC, which is fully owned by group president  Valery Mejlumyan, and also CJSC Base Metals, which operates a  copper-gold deposit in the village of Drmbon, Martakert region, NKR,  Armenian Copper Program (ACP) CJSC, which operates the Alaverdi  Copper Smelting Plant.