In the group’s financial report, it is mentioned that on January 16, 2023, a fire broke out that affected the vertical sunflower meal storage facilities, which collapsed or were later dismantled, of the processing unit – Danube Oil, from Giurgiulesti, but which did not caused human injury or death.
“In the current financial statements, the Group has recognized a provision for impairment regarding the dismantling of damaged silos ($1.86 million) and sunflower meal ($665,000) located in these silos,” the document states.
According to the report, the value of the depreciation is the sum of the construction costs of all six vertical silos, which were dismantled.
The total cost of the construction project of the oil processing plant in the Giurgiulesti International Free Port, carried out by the Danube Oil subsidiary, is estimated at 37 million dollars.
We remind you that following the fire and the collapse and dismantling of the six silos, the plant’s activity was suspended for a short period, and a few weeks ago it resumed its activity, but not at the maximum capacity of 700 tons of sunflower seeds per day, but approximately at 50%.
It should be noted that Vaja Jhashi owns about 87.5% of Trans-Oil, which includes a group of almost 40 companies from the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Switzerland, Georgia, Cyprus, Ireland. The value of the assets was estimated at more than 270 million dollars.
The group has a share of 90% in the sunflower seed processing and oil production market and about 50% in the export of cereals and oilseeds from Moldova.
Trans-Oil owns the largest network of elevators in the Republic of Moldova, as well as three sunflower seed processing factories and grain and oil transshipment terminals in Giurgiulesti.
AGORA recommends an investigation on this topic: What’s smoldering in Giurgiulești: How an installation without authorization ended up setting the whole country on fire
We remind you that, on the morning of January 16, IGSU employees from the south of the country intervened to put out a fire caused by the collapse of a storage tank for sunflower meal granules. According to the first information provided by the firefighters, due to the smoldering of a load of more than 1,000 tons of sunflower seed, the tanker collapsed. Six crews of rescuers and firefighters with a staff of 20 IGSU employees intervened at the scene to locate and extinguish the fire.
Later, the company that owns the scrap storage elevator announced that it will dismantle the remaining silos on the territory of Giurgiulesti Port. The work started on Tuesday 17 January and will continue for several weeks.
On January 19, the Environment Agency declared that the air in the area of the Giurgiulesti International Port in the Republic of Moldova has become polluted. Laboratory investigations demonstrated the maintenance of an increased level of phenol content in samples collected at distances of up to 100 m from the burned tanks.
We specify that, on the morning of January 20, another tank with a load of sunflower seed sawdust caught fire in the Giurgiulești Free International Port area.
