The investment into a new terminal for handling ammonia under construction in Taman will amount to 50 bn rubles ($816 mn), Dmitry Mazepin, member of the Management Board Bureau of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), Chair of the RSPP Commission on Mineral Fertilizer Production and Trading, Chairman of Uralchem Board, told in a meeting with RF President Vladimir Putin.
The group, which has among its assets Togliattiazot (TOAZ), a major ammonia producer, has been developing an alternative route to export ammonia via a new terminal under construction in Taman since 2021. At present, 500 people are engaged building the terminal.
“We hope that we will open the port in Taman by the end of 2023, and that will change the situation where the Russian Federation – a major producer of ammonia for as long as the country has existed – has been left with… Well, not a single ammonia transshipment port has been built, and we are tied down, or dependent on other countries that have such ports,” the Kremlin press office quotes Mazepin as saying.
“Therefore, we want to close this gap. We are working jointly with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, with the Government of the Krasnodar Territory, and other agencies. But we would like to ask you to help – to temporarily include transshipment and transportation of ammonia in Odessa in the grain deal for us, so that our product can also go to developing countries, including Africa,” he continued.
“Yes. All the parameters, the figures and volumes are clear. The benefits for all participants in this process are also clear,” the President said.
Answering Vladimir Putin’s question about a US company that wanted to buy the product on the border between Russia and Ukraine, Dmitry Mazepin said: “Yes, because the Ukrainian side asked us, how are you going to pay when there are no banking relations? We said that we were ready to sell the product at the factory gate, and use Transammonia, a large American trader. They agreed to buy it. They said, “We will ship it, we will deliver it.” They have been working on this market for decades. Still, the deal never got off the ground”.
“We hoped it would, and the UN has been feeding us promises that ammonia would be unblocked along with the new grain deal. But today I had a report that my people talked to the UN, and they were told, “The deal is already closed, sorry.”
“We will also work with the UN, with our colleagues from that organisation. We will see what we can do. You know my approach – I am not against it, go ahead,” Putin concluded.
Photo: Kremlin press office