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.