June 29 (SeeNews) - Romanian agri-industrial company InterAgro said on Monday it has reopened its Donau Chem fertilizer factory in the southern town of Turnu Magurele and plans to reopen two more of its plants by the end of the third quarter.
After a period of more than five years in which production was suspended, the company has gradually restarted the plant, reaching a daily production of about 1,500 tonnes of urea and 850 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, which requires over 1.6 million cu m of imported natural gas, InterAgro said in a press release.
InterAgro owner Ioan Niculae gradually shut down all the group's fertilizer plants during 2014-2016, claiming that the price of domestic natural gas is too high, according to local media.
The group entered insolvency in 2016 and then judicial reorganisation in 2019.
By the end of the third quarter, InterAgro plans to double the number of Donau Chem employees to 1,000.
Donau Chem was the group's second fertilizer plant to reopen, after Chemgas Slobozia in July 2019. Chemgas has a daily production capacity of 1,500 tonnes of urea, 1,100 tonnes of ammonia and 900 tonnes of ammonium nitrate for which it uses 1.4 million cu m of imported gas.
By the end of the third quarter, InterAgro said it plans to reopen another two of the group's six fertilizer plants, namely Azochim Savinesti and ROM Fertilizers Bacau.
"At the end of the third quarter, the four factories that InterAgro will have reopened will produce about 5,300 tonnes of urea and 4,700 tonnes of ammonia daily ensuring almost entirely the necessary for Romania," InterAgro Group president Ioan Niculae said.