Arakhamia considers nationalization of Mykolaiv Alumina Refinery hasty

KYIV. Feb 22 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Nationalization of Mykolaiv Alumina Refinery, owned by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, created social and environmental problems and should have been postponed, David Arakhamia, head of the Servant of the People parliamentary faction, believes.

“We, like jingoistic patriots, went and took away this plant, and I said that we shouldn’t do it now, but do everything at the end. Now the question is: who will pay the salary of 7,000 people, and with families the number id 25,000,” he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Wednesday.

Arakhamia recalled that Mykolaiv Alumina Refinery could not work, since the sea was blocked, through which raw materials (bauxites) were imported from Guinea.

“The plant will be idle. 7,000 will go outside, there will be a big crisis in Mykolaiv, but everyone reported on Facebook that we are good patriots – we took something from Deripaska. I said: let’s not take it now, let’s keep it in pocket, we will wait until the sea opens, and then we will take it, and we will immediately have continuous work,” the head of the Servant of the People faction said.

He added that in the case of Mykolaiv Alumina Refinery, there is also an environmental problem – the maintenance of sludge fields, with which “there has always been an environmental disaster.”

“Who will maintain the sludge fields when Deripaska is not there, there are no employees, I don’t know at all. Will we then send the army to hold these sludge fields?” Arakhamia said.

According to him, the operation of Mykolaiv Alumina Refinery even after the war is questionable due to the collapse of Zaporizhia Aluminum Plant and the absence of another aluminum production in Ukraine, while the construction of a new one is hardly possible without a special preferential tariff for electricity.

“I spoke with a large American company: (they said) we can build for $1 billion, perhaps somewhere in western Ukraine, but the special tariff… But our committee says that there is no legislative mechanism (to) give such a tariff: why the aluminum plant can, but others can’t – there will be a conflict, a scandal,” Arakhamia said.

“We need to mature as a society: if we want to have this strategic industry, then (we must) give some preferences, otherwise it will not work. There is no point in building this plant in the market, we should be interested,” the MP said.