Severodonetsk Azot plant. Image: Brian Milakovsky. All rights reserved.The enormous Azot chemical plant looms on the outskirts of Severodonetsk, a factory town of 110,000 in eastern Ukraine. Severodonetsk became the new capital of Luhansk oblast after the region’s namesake was occupied by separatist and Russian forces in May 2014.
At its peak Azot (which means nitrogen in Russian) was one of the largest producers of chemical fertilisers in the Soviet Union. The Russian-financed Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash bought the privatised plant in 2011 and incorporated it into his Ostchem holding, which unites Ukraine’s four largest fertiliser factories in a near-monopoly. Firtash’s business empire controlled imports of Russian natural gas, allowing him to make solid profits in the chemical industry where gas makes up 70% of production costs.
Although it had steadily been losing market share to more efficient competitors in Europe, Russia and China, the Azot factory still employed 8,000 people when separatist forces took over Severodonetsk in 2014. The factory was idled after heavy fighting knocked out Luhansk Oblast’s connection to the national electricity grid, which left the region an energy island wholly dependent on a single aging and war-damaged power plant. Until the region is reconnected to Ukraine’s national grid, Azot and other large factories can only operate at a fraction of their potential.
