Russia’s Sayanskhimplast denies reports of lay-offs, output cuts

12 December 2008 10:11  [Source: ICIS news]

MOSCOW (ICIS news)--Leading Russian polyvinyl chloride (PVC) producer Sayanskhimplast on Friday denied local media reports which claimed the company was laying off personnel and cutting production volumes.

Sayanskhimplast's PVC, chlorine and caustic soda facilities continue work at normal rates of their respective capacities, the company said in a statement.

The company is not laying off staff and has no lay-off plans, it said.

However, Sayanskhimplast CEO Nikolai Melnik conceded that the company did face repercussions of the economic crisis.

As demand falls and sale prices go significantly down, Sayanskhimplast would have to cut costs and some of its investment programmes, he was quoted as saying in the statement.

Earlier this month, Sayanskhimplast and Russia's other leading domestic PVC suppliers had to cut their December rouble offers by some Roubles 10,000/tonne ($271/tonne) due to falling demand.

Based in the Irkutsk region in eastern Siberia, Sayanskhimplast aims to produce 250,000 tonnes of PVC in 2008. In January-June, the company produced 134,083 tonnes of PVC, up 0.3% year on year. It earlier announced plans to raise its PVC output to 400,000 tonnes/year by 2011.

In April 2008, Sayanskhimplast employed Germany's Uhde to build a new vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) unit to produce 200,000 tonnes/year, due on stream in October 2010. Sayanskhimplast refrained from comments on Friday on whether this project could be affected.

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By: Sergei Blagov
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