After the shutdown of Artemsoli, the largest producer in the region and a monopoly in Ukraine, Moldova has been replacing this deficit for the third year with supplies from Romania, Turkey, Egypt and other countries.
From time to time, problems arise: from too coarse grinding, to substandard quality, which causes this penny product to be rejected in meat and fish production.
Now the production of such a strategic commodity will appear literally a few kilometers from the border between Moldova and Ukraine.
In the estuary of the National Park “Cuyalnitsky” salt without processing contains 95-96% of sodium chloride. This corresponds to the second grade according to Ukrainian norms even without processing. In the old days Odessa residents simply collected salt on Kuyalnik and used it as a finished product. Now this raw material will be processed into the highest grade salt.
If on “Artemsoli” extraction was conducted by mine method, on Kuyalnik another principle – solar evaporation of brine in open pools, as in the southern countries of Europe. This method is suitable for the estuary and allows us to work without interfering with its structure.
The company “Alpha Grant”, which works in many areas: trade, import, logistics and construction, will be in charge of this project. A former designer of Artemsoli, as well as Turkish experts in salt evaporation, have been invited to be the production director.
There will be three directions. The first is food salt: packaging ranges from ordinary kilogram packs to big-bags of 1.5 tons. The equipment is already arriving, the installation will be completed in January. The second direction is tablet salt for water treatment. This production is already working, so far on imported raw materials, but from January the company will completely switch to its own. The third direction is salt blocks for livestock breeding (lickers), which are scheduled to be launched in the second half of next year.
Tableted salt and salt blocks are supposed to be exported to the nearest markets: Moldova and Romania. This is logistically convenient and economically feasible.
There is a nuance with regard to edible salt. After Artemsoli was shut down, Ukraine imposed a ban on exports to prevent shortages. Now the market there has stabilized. Therefore, it is possible that this restriction will be lifted.
