‘Zinc plant of Chelyabinsk produces over 300,000 tons of sulfuric acid a year, whereas our major buyers – mineral fertilizer producers – have closed up mainly because the agricultural farms cannot afford to buy enough fertilizers anymore. Thus we’ve been faced with a problem of being unable to sell the acid,’ General Director of Zinc Plant of Chelyabinsk Vsevolod Geihmann announced at the meeting of PROMASS, the Organization of Employers of Chelyabinsk Region.

Mr Geihmann believes that it is essential to find ways of storing the acid safely. ‘The Ministry of Transport does not let us rent their tanks anymore, so the plant has to buy them. What is more, even though we used to supply acid only within the radius of 150 to 200 kilometers for 30 or 40 years, we now have to supply to enterprises as far as 1200 kilometers away,’ he said.

2 tons of sulfuric acid are produced with each ton of metal. The most important thing then is to prevent the sulfur dioxide gas from being released into the air, and this is why we have already invested over $30m in the renovating and upgrading of our sulfuric acid production over the last five years and keep on investing still,’ Mr Geihmann added.