Citic Pacific Ltd. of China is planning to commission the much-delayed Uzbek Kungrad Soda Plant, located in Karakalpakstan, on 21 July 2006, nearly two years after the plant was supposed to enter serv…
Citic Pacific Ltd. of China is planning to commission the much-delayed Uzbek Kungrad Soda Plant, located in Karakalpakstan, on 21 July 2006, nearly two years after the plant was supposed to enter service. According to Uzhimprom (Uzbek Chemical Company), the Chinese party is currently eliminating minor technical problems in the plant, which was set up in August 2005. At the same time, Uzhimprom is holding negotiations with Citic to accelerate the launch of the USD 100 million plant. The Uzbek side hopes that the plant will be launched at the end of June 2006. The plant, with a capacity of 100,000 tonnes of soda ash per year, was originally planned to open in August 2004, but this was firstly put back to August 2005 because of technical and financial problems, and then to summer 2005 because of the persistence of technical problems that Citic is working to resolve. Citic and Uzhimprom signed a USD 32.3 million agreement on the design and building of the equipment for Kungrad soda plant. Financing of this aspect of the project has been carried out with a credit from the Industrial-Commercial Bank of China. The project has been insured by China Export-Credit Insurance Corporation (90% of the total contract cost) and Uzpromstorybank (Uzbek Industry and Construction Bank) under guarantee of the Uzbek government (10%). Uzhimprom is financing general construction works from its own resources. The launch of Kungrad soda plant will allow Uzbekistan to meet its domestic demand for soda ash and allow the export of soda ash and hydrate of sodium, as well as salt. According to estimates, Uzbekistan consumes 60,000-70,000 tonnes of soda ash per annum. Kungrad soda plant will use raw materials located in Karakalpakstan: salt from Barsekelmes (131 million tonnes of proven salt reserves with a sodium chloride content of 97%) and limestone from Djamansay (proven reserves of over 70 million tonnes).