Hard times at Belaruskali

Pre-crisis delivery volumes and salaries will be restored at the ends of the year at earliest.

A charter97.org web-site’s reported went to Salihorsk and spoke to the employees of the potash giant. They all were united in the opinion that Uralkali’s withdrawal from Belarusian Potash Company because of Lukashenka’s machinations led to the decline of the flagman of Belarusian industry and significant drop in the employees’ salaries.

“Of course, in Belarusian Potash Company everyone stole – Belaruskali and Uralkali alike. But at a certain point the Belarusian party went so far that the Russian partner decided to quit BPC. Now many employees get 2/3 of the contract salary. Of course, from time to time we work as usual, but a lot of money has been lost since August”, - an engineer of the third mine department says.

A miner from the first mine department added that the pre-crisis delivery volumes and salary levels would be restored at earliest at the end of the year.

“At a conference in December the director general said that in early April more or less serious contracts will be concluded, because the sowing campaign will start etc. So far two or three insignificant contracts were concluded. It will be possible to reach the delivery volumes and salary rates of the first half of 2013 only by the end of the year at earliest. Uralkali brings down the prices and takes the market with volumes. Belaruskali will do the same, but time is needed for that”, - he pointed out.

We would remind that the critical situation at Belarus’ largest enterprise emerged after a conflict with Uralkali.

In late July Belaruskali’s Russian partner stopped export delivery through the mediation of the joint trader Belarusian Potash Company (BPC). In this regard Belaruskali stopped the functioning of two out of four mines in August and put a significant part of employees on 2/3 salary rate.

On 26 August Uralkali’s director general Vladislav Baumgertner was arrested in Minsk. He was charged with power abuse. In late November Baumgertner was extradited to Russia. Belarusian authorities believe that he and other BPC top-managers caused Belaruskali’s a damage of up to 100 million dollars.