The chemical plant Oltchim Ramnicu Valcea is planning to enter the lime market and build its own facility to provide its own consumption. The lime market is put at 30 million euros a year.
“We use lime together with carbon dioxide to get propene-oxide, a raw material used in the manufacture of polyurethane. Lime manufacturing also yields carbon dioxide and this way we can solve two problems at once. The total value of the investment is 6 million euros,” Oltchim Ramnicu Valcea general manager Constantin Roibu told Ziarul Financiar.
The plant will have a production capacity of 400 tonnes per day.
The lime market is estimated at 1-1.1 million tonnes and is growing at over 10% per year at a time of increasing demand for construction materials.
Besides the free market segment, the total market includes the segment of captive consumers – industrial operators producing for their own needs, such as COS Targoviste, Ispat Sidex, UPSOM Ocna Mures and Carbid Fox Tarnaveni. Oltchim Ramnicu Valcea will now also enter this segment.
The biggest player on the free market is the Belgian company Carmeuse, which recently acquired the lime business owned by HeidelbergCement in Romania; Simcor Oradea, which took over the lime operations of French company Lafarge in December 2003; and Prescon Brasov, a business belonging to the businessman Ioan Neculaie, who is also the owner of the football club FC Brasov.
Uzinele Sodice Govora, which is part of the group of firms controlled by the Cristescu brothers, is one of Oltchim”s lime suppliers.
adrian.mirsanu@zf.ro; vlad.nicolaescu@zf.ro
Politics
Premier Calin Popescu Tariceanu (photo) said yesterday that he was standing by his decision to resign, since none of the three conditions he had set the day before had been met. The reasons for his resignation had remained valid, he said. He explained that procedures for early elections would begin on Monday, after he returned from his trip to Brussels. The Romanian Premier explained that the vote by Parliament on the provisions discarded as unconstitutional from the legislation on reform of the justice system had demonstrated that there was both insufficient will to see the process through to the end and that there was no working majority necessary to take the measures needed for EU accession. Tariceanu said he had shown as much willingness as possible in the talks on the issue and that his colleagues from the parliamentary committees had demonstrated flexibility and a wish to identify a compromise solution. “There is a limit, however (…) I am extremely disappointed with the result of the vote and have seen that it was hoped to maintain the privileges and structures that have proved ineffective in the justice system (…) I cannot tolerate this situation, I will have nothing to do with a process whereby the Romanian people, my people, is sentenced to corruption, poverty and isolation,” he said. The Romanian President, Traian Basescu, believes the Prime Minister is justified in sticking by his decision to resign, since Parliament has failed to find a solution to pass the articles needed for “a thorough reform of the justice system.”