The State Inspectorate for Environment says it has fined Kurum 1 million lek (Euro 7,000) and left the company a 40-day deadline until May 20 to meet its environmental requirements over waste management
TIRANA, April – Turkey’s Kurum has had its activity in the central Albanian city of Elbasan, where it operates a huge steel plant, suspended over environmental pollution, a state inspectorate has ruled.
The State Inspectorate for Environment says it has fined Kurum 1 million lek (Euro 7,000) and left the company a 40-day deadline until May 20 to meet its environmental requirements over waste management.
“The company will have its suspension lifted only after meeting all legal requirements and after an assessment that will be carried out by the Environment Ministry and the State Inspectorate for Environment and Forests based on procedures and legal deadlines,” chief inspector Ergys Agasi has said.
The ministry’s decision to suspend Kurum has also been hailed by environmentalists who have been continuously protesting the company’s dangerous waste disposal in river banks and its failure to activate its filters even after their installation, making Elbasan Albania’s most polluted city with a rising number of environmental-related diseases including cancer and genetic mutations.
The Environment Ministry has asked Kurum to submit a waste management plan determining all kinds of waste and its treatment cycle until their final destruction, including measures, deadlines and investments the company has to make.
Kurum’s suspension comes few days after the Inspectorate also suspended the activity of Canada-based Bankers Petroleum which operates the Patos-Marinza heavy oilfield in south-western Albania and is the country’s largest foreign investor, after a blast incident at two of its oil wells, endangering local residents
Turkey’s Kurum, which is one of the country’s biggest investors, has recently expanded its activity in Albania in energy and port services by acquiring four small and medium sized hydropower plants and operating the container terminal in the country’s biggest port of Durres.
Established in 1999, Kurum International Albania, a subsidiary of Turkey’s Kurum Group, is the largest steel producer in Albania with 70 percent of the country’s market share, manufacturing and selling a variety of hot-rolled construction iron products to clients in Albania, the EU and the Balkans. The company is also involved in the production of liquid oxygen, lime and in boat construction and dockyard repair.
