Ukrainian company to shutter N plants

Kiev — Group DF, a company controlled by Ukrainian tycoon Dmytro Firtash, announced on May 28 that it was closing down its remaining two nitrogen fertilizer plants in Ukraine due to “systematic and unexplained pressure” from the government. A company statement said the closure of the Ostchem Holding plants Azot PJSC (Cherkasy) and Rivne Azot PJSC was the result of the government’s “absolutely unlawful” decision to withhold natural gas, which Group DF attributed to a “large-scale political attack” against the company and Firtash. Group DF said it closed two other nitrogen plants – Azot PJSC (Cherkasy) and Rivne Azot PJSC – in May 2014 due to terrorism-related safety concerns. Firtash has faced corruption allegations from Ukraine’s People’s Front government members since the ouster of pro-Russian president Victor Yanukovich. The company’s statement referred to the “continuing cynical attacks” as “deliberate fabrication of a range of criminal cases” against Firtash and other company executives, and said they were intended to “destroy the business and jobs and harm the whole industries of the Ukrainian economy.”