Conflicting reports on Armenia’s chemical giant

Haykakan Zhamanak, Yerevan
2 Nov 04

One can hardly think of a plant’s obituary being announced.

This is precisely what the director-general of the Armenian power
network, Yevgeniy Gladunchik, did yesterday [1 November].

“We are very much worried about what is taking place with [Armenia’s
chemical giant] Nairit today. I am afraid I won’t even be able to name
the owner of Nairit. It’s last owner [Russian] Volgaburmash has
abandoned Nairit. In other words, today Nairit has no owner. It is
being provided with power, we have to supply the power to protect the
environment. The plant has not been operating since August. The
promise made by the previous owner was a bluff. We did everything we
could for Nairit to function. All in vain. Nairit is not
working. Today an order was given to disconnect Nairit. The plant is
dead, unfortunately. This is a great loss to us,” Mr Gladunchik told
a press conference yesterday.

[Passage omitted: Nairit is the major power consumer and its closure
is a big financial loss]

But did Nairit really die? It is clear that the report was a little
bit exaggerated. “The statement that Volgaburmash rejected the Nairit
shares does not correspond to reality,” the leader of the
“Haykapbank”, Arutyun Mesropyan, said. This bank is connected with
Nairit in so many ways that both have became the property of
Volgaburmush. According to Mesropyan, they did not receive any
official statements from Volgaburmush that it is no longer interested
in Nairit . “Moreover, talks are under way,” Mesropyan said, but he
did not divulge any details of the talks or named the parties
involved. As to the statement that Nairit has not been functioning
since August, Mesropyan said the plant can resume work any moment now,
but he did not explain why it does not do so.

Yesterday Gladunchik said that Nairit is now the biggest debtor to the
Armenian energy network. It owes about 800m Armenian drams or more
than 1.5m US dollars. That is why the director of the Armenian energy
network read out the obituary about Nairit.

[Passage omitted: Mesropyan vows Nairit will pay off the debts given a
chance]