Bulgarian fertilizer producer Neochim AD began the process of resuming production in Dimitrovgrad in southern Bulgaria as of Oct. 18, after a shutdown in early August for planned annual maintenance was then extended due to high natural gas prices,
The restart in Dimitrovgrad in southern Bulgaria is being carried out in two stages, according to a company filing on Oct. 15, with the restart of the nitric acid and ammonium nitrate units in the first phase.
However, the nitric acid production restart was stopped again on Oct. 18 due to a “technical malfunction,” according to an Oct. 19 filing by Neochim. The company said it expects to resolve the issue in the shortest possible time.
The Bulgarian producer confirmed it will restart production of ammonia and ammonium bicarbonate within a month, as planned. According to Green Markets database, Neochim has capacity to produce 0.45 million mt/y of ammonia and 0.63 million mt/y of ammonium nitrate at Dimitrovgrad.
Agropolychim, Bulgarian biggest fertilizer producer, resumed full capacity production in August after the completion of another stage of an investment program that updated several of its production facilities at production site near the northeastern town of Devnya and helped it reduce natural gas consumption (GM Sept. 2, p. 29).
Agropolychim in 2019 switched from ammonia production to imported ammonia after the commissioning of an ammonia import terminal, which it said made the company almost completely independent of natural gas prices.