STARTING NEXT WEEK, Ioan Niculae shuts down "Nitroporos" and "Viromet" Victoria

• These two plants alone employ over 1,100 people, but "InterAgro" intends to completely shut down the manufacturing of fertilizer by the end of November

Ioan Niculae, the owner of the "InterAgro" group, yesterday said, that next week he will start sending in notices about the plan to begin laying off the employees of "Viromet" Victoria and "Nitroporos" Făgăraş, after the Romanian government decided not to extend the period for the application of the Emergency Ordinance 54/2009, which allowed companies operating in the chemical industry to use domestically produced gas, which had a lower price.

"This decision is final, based strictly on figures, because if I were to pay for the gas at the new price, I"d be left with my products unsold, because customers would turn to foreign products which are far cheaper", Ioan Niculae said yesterday.

This decision will affect over 1,100 individuals in the county of Braşov - 600 from "Nitroporos" Făgăraş and 550 from "Viromet" Victoria.

Lucian Cupu, the leader of the union of the platform of Făgăraş, said that this decision was to be expected, after the government opted to no longer extend the validity of the ordinance which allowed chemical companies to use domestically produced gas exclusively. "Buying gas at the new prices would prevent us from being competitive in the market", he said.

Romania buys Russian gas at a price of USD 400/thousand cubic meters, whereas other countries pay a price of 230 - 300 dollars for the same Russian gas, Niculae said. He also said that the InterAgro group of companies contributed almost 600 million Euros to the Romanian GDP between the date of the implementation of the aforementioned ordinance and until September 2010. Out of that amount, 145 million Euros was earnings taxes, 50 million Euros were wages and wage taxes, eight million Euros were local taxes, and the remaining amount included payments to gas and electricity suppliers and transport services.

Niculae says that Ordinance 54/2009 was the only measure of economic support that the Boc government passed, which resulted in the preservation of the 7,000 jobs, which were mostly located in areas with just one industry, without taking into consideration the jobs in the ancillary industries. "In the event that chemical plants stopped working, Romgaz would have no market for itself, especially as it only delivered 63% of the gas specified in the contract, whereas the rest was acquired from other suppliers", Ioan Niculae said, in response to the accusations that InterAgro consumed half of the output of "Romgaz". The owner of "InterAgro" also said that if the chemical plants in the group hadn"t been active, the country"s budget deficit would have increased even further, as the exports of the companies in the group amounted to 1.1 billion Euros. "Without these exports, the deficit would not have increased by just 1.1 billion Euros; it would have actually grown by one more billion Euros, the equivalent value of the chemicals products that would have been imported".

• "We may decide to sell"

When asked about the assets that he owns in "Victoria" and "Făgăraş", Ioan Niculae only had the following to say: "We may decide to sell them, or we will make a decision when the time comes".

"Nitroporos" Făgăraş had just been reopened after more than ten years of inactivity, during which it time it hadn"t produced anything and it had lost market share. 40 million lei were spent for reopening the plant, aside from the ten million Euros paid in 2007 to acquire the assets of the chemical plant "Nitramonia" Făgăraş, after it had entered voluntary liquidation.

Ioan Niculae also said that next week it would close down the GA&PRO CO plant of Piatra-Neamţ, whereas "Amurco" Bacău would still operate until November 25th, while "Donau Chem" Turnu Măgurele and "Chemgaz" Slobozia would continue to function until the end of November, when some of their contracts expire.