Since our recent publication concerning Nairit the management of the company is looking for guilty people for outflow of information. According to our information, “as a result of operative actions they searched and found two employees” who have been fired. One of the employees was asked to come back because he threatened to give more information about the situation in Nairit to the media. The prime minister will visit the company in such tense environment. The PR department of the government did not inform us the exact date of the visit, but we have found out that the visit date is April 28. For this purpose the minister of economy Nerses Yeritsyan visited the factory on April 10 and gave some instructions for the purpose of preparing the visit. However this preparation work is not a normal procedure because the PM will be accepted in the factory like Brezhnev was done during the Soviet times. Now the factory staff is cleaning up the places where the PM will walk and several employees will be given questions in advance for the purpose of asking those questions to the prime minister. In other words, the prime minister, who is doing his best to make the trade banks of Armenia to provide credits to the Nairit (even though they perfectly know that they will not get their money back), will be accepted in the factory in a duly manner and all this show will be shown on TV. In addition, there is a weird fact, which exactly reminds of the soviet times of Brezhnev. It turns out that for the purpose of getting another borrowing a project has been worked out, which will be used for the purpose of enlarging the chemical factory of Vanadzor and producing carbide, which will be used to produce the necessary raw materials for caoutchouc. It is a fact that caoutchouc can be produced in two ways: either from acetylene or based on butadiene. Most of the companies in the world are producing caoutchouc based on processing butadiene. During the last years of the Soviet period Nairit used the same procedure of caoutchouc production because it was safer than the acetylene processing method. As for acetylene, it was produced through two methods. In the first phase of the Soviet period it was produced of carbide, but later the procedure was improved and it was produced from another material through heating natural gas. Now Nairit is using this method too because since the independence it is very difficult to import butadiene. As the price of gas is growing (as it is written above, for the production natural gas is needed), some people have come to the idea that if they produce caoutchouc from carbide and produce this carbide in Vanadzor they can recover the factory. Before the crisis the carbide produced in Vanadzor was sold to India, but now there are problems with this market. It may seem that this helps to kill two rabbits with one shot because on the one hand the factory produces caoutchouc without using the expensive gas, and on the other hand the carbide factory of Vanadzor produces more carbide and opens more working places. However in the reality this project is not justified. In order to produce carbide the factory needs not only limestone, which is extracted from the local mines, but also coal, which is exported and is very expensive. A person who is specialized in this specific area told us that in order to produce one tone of caoutchouc they have to use 4 tones of carbide (in all cases), and the price of 4 tones of carbide is more expensive in the international market than the price of one tone of caoutchouc. In a word, the raw materials are more expensive than the product. Furthermore, if the method of producing caoutchouc through acetylene processing is dangerous and ecologically unjustified, (compared to the technology of butadiene), it is less harmful for the environment than the carbide processing method. When the factory used to produce caoutchouc through processing carbide acetylene during the Soviet time every day over 30 tones of dust was being thrown out to the city. Accordingly, this project is a trick and the experience shows that only such “projects” are implemented in Armenia. Thus it is not excluded that due to the efforts of the prime minister, who is known to be a good economist, we may have a factory, the products of which will be cheaper in the international market than the price of the raw materials.
