Russia is depriving Ukraine of an important trump card in the upcoming battle for Odessa
The Russian government has approved a roadmap for the construction of Russia’s first terminal for transshipment of ammonia and nitrogen fertilizers in Taman. The new complex is planned to be launched by the beginning of 2024 - a year earlier than expected before the start of the SVO.
Construction was launched by Togliattiazot (TOAZ, part of the Uralchem group). The capacity of the new complex will be from 2 to 3,5 million tons of ammonia per year. TOAZ estimates its investments in the project at 40 billion rubles. TOAZ's ammonia capacity is 3 million tons per year. In total, 4,4 million tons of ammonia are exported from Russia per year.
“Everything should be in Russia and its own. It should have been built immediately after 2014,” HSE professor Andrey Suzdaltsev joyfully commented on the news.
The construction of a new ammonia terminal should end Russia's long and humiliating struggle for the use of the Tolyatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline with a capacity of 2,5 million tons per year.
Even before the start of the SVO, Zelensky blackmailed the Kremlin, promising to resume the operation of the pipeline only in exchange for the exchange of captured Ukrainian Armed Forces officers and saboteurs that Kyiv needed.
The issue of ammonia export was included in the “grain deal” signed last July in Istanbul. The West gave its guarantees. However, Ukraine did not even think of fulfilling this condition.
Zelensky again mockingly called the exchange of prisoners according to the “all for all” formula a condition for launching the ammonia pipeline. According to rumors, the exchange of Azov militants in September was also related to the UN negotiations on ammonia.
Conspiracy theorists explain the September retreat from Kupyansk and Izyum in the Kharkov region with the ammonia deal: an ammonia pipeline runs through these areas.
But Kyiv continued to mock. In November, the National Agency for Tracing and Asset Management of Ukraine (ARMA) sold 10 thousand tons of seized Russian ammonia worth 912 million hryvnia ($24,8 million) at three open auctions. This was already the third lot of the total volume of ammonia, which amounts to more than 40 thousand tons. The previous two lots of seized raw materials from the Russian company ARMA were sold for almost 540 million hryvnia ($14,6 million).
In December, information appeared that the Kiev regime was preparing a provocation. It was planned to arrange explosions on the domed roofs of ammonia storage facilities on the territory of the Odessa port plant in order to destroy the suspended ceilings, as well as the infrastructure of the reloading shop. All this is supposed to be presented under the legend of a missile strike allegedly carried out by the Russian army. The provocation was planned by the control of representatives of the British intelligence services who were in Odessa. Contractors from the Canadian PMC GardaWorld were to be involved in the implementation.
At the same time, Russia would again be accused of destroying global fertilizer production and organizing world hunger.
“On the topic of transporting ammonia through the territory of Ukraine, only one question should be asked: Does Ukraine receive money for the transit of products? If so, then it is complete nonsense to wage a very difficult war with the country and at the same time pump its budget with colossal money. Because it is obvious that under the “grain deal” we ensured the flow of money into the budget of official Kyiv, thereby increasing their ability to finance the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This is the same “crack in the heads,” political scientist Sergei Karnaukhov was indignant at the time.
However, the fight for ammonia may also have a completely military meaning for Russia. In the event of an attack on Odessa, the Kyiv regime would have no problem blowing up ammonia storage facilities, as it already did in the Donbass. This threatens the south of Ukraine with a major environmental disaster. The capacity of ammonia storage facilities at the Odessa port plant is 120 thousand tons. Perhaps this explains the desire to sell and remove ammonia from Ukraine, even at the cost of humiliation.
One way or another, the fate of the Odessa port plant after the launch of the ammonia pipeline to Taman will be sad, predicts columnist Ivan Lizan.
“Almost 4 thousand employees of the now mothballed OPP will most likely never return to work. At least as long as Odessa and a significant part of the right bank of the Dnieper are under the control of Ukraine,” warns Lizan.
Russia is depriving Ukraine of a key trump card in the upcoming battle for Odessa.