Gomel oblast to build soda ash facility of 1mln ton annual capacity
Gomel oblast is going to build a soda ash facility to produce soda ash of the annual capacity of 1 million tons. The facility will be built in the territory of the industrial zone of the town of Mozyr, Valentin Begliak, a deputy chairman of the Mozyr regional executive committee, told BelTA.
A feasibility study is being underway. The construction will be laucnehd in 2008. The first phase of the comapny of the 400.000 ton capacity will go live in 2010. The first phase of the investment project is estaimetd at $220-250 million. The project will be financed by АТЕС Handelsgesellschaft mbН from Austria. Some 600 new jobs will be created.
Mozyr alkali works will be the first company of the kind in Belarus. Every eyar Belarus spends $25 million to import more than 120 thousand tons of soda ash for its glass, chemical, steel industries as well as other branches of the economy. After the plant reaches its designed capacity it can take at least 3.5% of the itnernaitonal market of soda ash.
Big deposits of rock salt in the Mozyr region are estimated at 22 billion tons. There are also sigifcant depostis of lime, the second most imrpotant component part for soda ash production.
