Omsk Carbon plant start-up delayed

Mogilev, Belarus – Omsk Carbon has delayed the start-up of its new carbon black production plant in Mogilev, according to Omsk Carbon Mogilev’s director Michael Karavaev.

Originally scheduled to be ready by December 2015, the plant is now set for production in the fourth quarter of 2016, Karavaev confirmed in a written statement to ERJ.

The company, he said, is building “20 infrastructure and industrial facilities” at the site and estimates that the first balancing and commissioning of first process flow 1 for grades 220, 330, 339, 375 will be by the end of the year.

Earlier this year, the company said it expected the first flow at the €95-million plant to start this summer.

The 200-kilotonnes per annum facility had been scheduled to gradually ramp up to full capacity by 2019

According to the company, the Mogilev plant is being constructed using “state-of-the-art technologies and is designed to environmentally-friendly manufacturing”. The project, it added, will create about 450 new jobs.