KHUJAND, October 3, 2009, Asia-Plus — The Sughd-based open joint-stock company, Kombinati Fuzuloti Nodiri Lininobod (Leninabad Rare Metals Plant or LRMP), has been suspended from operation until the end of the year, Asia-Plus has learned from the enterprise director Mahmoud Kholiqov.
According to him, the enterprise has been suspended from operation because the international prices for LRMP’s major product – ferrotitanium – have not yet become stable. “We have been forced to sell the product that has been kept in warehouses at a loss,” said Kholiqov, “We have sold it to European buyers at US$2.70 per kilograms while the actual price is US$8.6 per kilogram.”
“We have an opportunity to come out of the crisis and even to increase the number of working places due to development of the nemaline quartz deposit neat the settlement of Choruk-Darron, but we have failed to receive the license from the government for developing this deposit” said the director, “Therefore, we have been forced to suspend the enterprise from operation.”
Some 450 people now work with the Leninabad Rare Metals Plant, which produces ferrosilicon. The enterprise owner is Austria’s Stork Group belonging to Indian national Rathal Gjugendra Singh (phonetically spelled).
LRMP is located in the settlement of Choruk- Darron, which is 20 kilometers away from Khujand. The plant was established during the year 1942 and was one of the biggest vanadium and molybdenum based master alloys producer during the Soviet period. After the collapse of Soviet Union, it had to undergo certain changes. Currently it is specialized in the production of: Ferrovanadium (FeV), Ferromolybdenum (FeMo), and Ferrotitanium (FeTi). Technical know-how, expertise and production facilities of the plant are intact and can allow producing many special alloys.
Stork Group companies were established at the end of 80’s as trading companies for consumer and industrial products and evolved into minerals, metals and heavy engineering goods trading group. Later on by mid-90’s, it entered into production ventures by acquiring substantial stakes of the following producers: JSC Uralredmet (Russia); JSC Chernyshikhinski Meat Processing Plant (Russia); Volnogorsk Zirconium Refractories Plant (Ukraine); TransInvestService Ltd. (Ukraine); Leninabad Rare Metals Plant (Tajikistan); and Bothli Tradе A. G. (Switzerland).
