Fertilizer Producer Nitrofert Resumes Operations
Nitrofert, a Kohtla-Järve company that produces mineral fertilizers such as ammonia and urea, has relaunched operations after a four-year standstill.
In 2009, fertilizer prices dropped on the world market and the cost of natural gas, its raw material, shot up dramatically. But the company decided to keep its 460 employees on the payroll, doing maintenance work, reported ETV.
"We didn't have a choice. The last time the factory was frozen, for 1.5 years, we laid off workers, but later it was difficult to find a labor force. For that reason we decided to keep the people we had and continue paying them,“ said CEO Aleksei Nikolajev.
Now the market situation has improved. Nikolajev said the price of ammonia is currently very good, and that if the company produced only ammonia, it would be making a big profit. But the technology is such that it must also produce urea, which is cheaper.
Nitrofert sells mostly to other European Union countries, but also the Americas and Estonian farmers.
