The company begins removing equipment and mass layoffs

The Baikal pulp and paper mill has stopped pulping, and massive staff layoffs are expected at the enterprise starting Wednesday. The plant's management and officials say that the released workers will be partly involved in recycling production waste and dismantling buildings, and partly they will be able to find work at the Selenga Pulp and Paper Mill in Buryatia. As Kommersant learned, there are no vacancies at this enterprise. The plant's trade union is preparing for mass protests.

At JSC Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill, production was stopped and work began on equipment conservation. “In the near future, a project for dismantling part of the BPPM buildings will be ready. We will do this too,” RIA Novosti quotes the bankruptcy manager of BPPM OJSC Alexander Ivanov. On Wednesday, Mr. Ivanov intends to sign an order to lay off almost 800 workers at the plant out of 1.5 thousand people employed in production. The rest will continue to work at the plant’s thermal power plant, which also supplies the city of Baikalsk with a population of about 15 thousand people with heat, and in workshops technologically connected to the heating plant.

The Russian government made the decision to close the BPPM in February of this year. It was voiced by Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who said that the process will be gradual and will take several years. He also stated that the closure also involves the transfer of some equipment to other production facilities. The company itself is going through bankruptcy proceedings; its main creditor is Vnesheconombank (VEB). Previously, VEB bought the debt from Alfa Bank, now the structure of the state bank VEB-Engineering is dealing with the closure of the plant and waste disposal. General Director of VEB-Engineering Dmitry Sheibe said that closing the plant could cost 12-15 billion rubles. and will take at least two years, another four to six years will be required to eliminate the accumulated waste of the BPPM. Mr. Scheibe also announced negotiations on the transfer of part of the equipment to the Selenga pulp and paper mill (part of the Continental Management structure), where, according to him, workers of the Baikal plant could be employed.

The BPPM is located on the southern shore of Lake Baikal and was commissioned in 1966. Cellulose production capacity is about 200 thousand tons per year. 51% of the plant’s shares are owned by Nikolai Makarov’s Continental Invest company, 49% by the Federal Property Management Agency. According to SPARK-Interfax, the plant ended 2012 with a net loss of 477 million rubles. with revenue of 2.18 billion rubles. For the first quarter of 2013, BPPM's revenue amounted to 214.6 million rubles, net loss - 265.5 million.

As Deputy Mayor of Baikalsk Viktor Zyryanov told Kommersant, the issues of stopping the BPPM were discussed on Monday at a meeting with the mayor of the Slyudyansky district, where a representative of the plant was also present. “The last batch of cellulose was cooked on September 13 at 8 a.m., having used up the last supplies of wood. There are two cars with chlorine left at the plant, they will be sold,” Mr. Zyryanov told Kommersant. He also noted that the thermal power plant was stopped for scheduled repairs before the heating season; it will be launched on September 21. There are 4.2 thousand tons of coal in warehouses, enough for 14 days. “People don't panic. Some of them will continue to work at the plant, dismantling buildings and recycling waste, while others will be able to find work at the Selenga pulp and paper mill, where the second pulping line is being launched. It is also assumed that people will be employed in the tourism sector,” noted Viktor Zyryanov.

The chairman of the BPPM trade union, Yuri Nabokov, told Kommersant that as soon as the order for layoffs is issued, workers will go out to mass protests. “The dismissal of 800 people is only the first wave,” he is sure. The company expects the second one at the end of the heating season. Yuri Nabokov believes that the implementation of the waste disposal program, which, according to him, will be launched in May-April next year, will involve people from among the remaining ones. “We have already been told that 150 people will work on dismantling and 50 on disposal,” he said. Yuri Nabokov also reported that “no offers of further employment were made to people, no one offered any vacancies.”

A representative of the LPK Continental Management told Kommersant that there are no free places at the Selenga Pulp and Paper Mill where it would be possible to employ the redundant employees of the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill. He suggested that vacancies may appear, but only if the project to modernize the Selenga pulp and paper plant is implemented. The representative of Continental Management did not comment on the issue of transferring production lines from BPPM. “The equipment at the BPPM is very old, the only one they purchased last year was an installation for drying lignin,” Irina Maksimova, scientific secretary of the SB RAS Scientific Council on Baikal Problems, told Kommersant. She considers the statement regarding the transfer of equipment “very superficial.” According to her, regional officials are actively lobbying for the exclusion of some activities from the list of prohibited activities in the Baikal zone in order to develop alternative industries. “The regional government will have to submit its proposals to the scientific center so that they can assess whether this is possible,” added Ms. Maksimova.

Ekaterina Eremenko

BPPM reached the final stop