Bulgarian fertilizer producer Neochim AD halted ammonia production again on Jan. 10 at Dimitrovgrad in southern Bulgaria due to a technical issue, Russia’s Tass news agency reported, citing a company bourse filing.
The production stoppage at the ammonia unit has also led to operations being halted at Neochim’s ammonium bicarbonate unit. The company said it was taking measures to establish the cause of the technical glitch and was working to resolve the issue.
Neochim has experienced a number of production disruptions to its ammonia and nitric acid units in the past several months. The most recent stoppage was at the ammonia unit in November, again reportedly due to a technical issue.
The producer had only just begun the process of resuming production in October after a shutdown in early August for planned annual maintenance, which was then extended due to high natural gas prices (GM Oct. 21, 2022).
Neochim has capacity to produce 0.45 million mt/y of ammonia and 0.63 million mt/y of ammonium nitrate at Dimitrovgrad.