KHUJAND, April 28, 2011, Asia-Plus — After being closed for 30 months, the Sughd-based open joint-stock company, Kombinati Fuzuloti Nodiri Lininobod (Leninabad Rare Metals Plant or LRMP), has resumed operations this week, Asia-Plus has learned from the enterprise director Mahmoud Kholiqov.
The enterprise had not been in operation since November 2008 due to financial crisis. “Financial crisis resulted in prices of ferrotitanium, which is one of the main products of the plant, falling five times,” said the director. “Currently, the situation is changing for better and the prices are expected to become stable by the middle of this year. In this connection, the enterprise owners have decided to resume operations.”
According to him, the plant now uses consumer’s feedstock from Russia or Brazil. “200 people now work for LRMP at an average monthly wage of 600 somoni,” said Kholiqov. “We plan to produce up to 100 tons of output per month. All our output is exported.”
The enterprise owner is Austria’s Stork Group belonging to Indian national Rathal Gjugendra Singh (phonetically spelled).
LRMP is located in the settlement of Chorukdarron, some 20 kilometers of Khujand. The plant was established in 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).
