The Flax-Processing Plant in the Industrial Park Safonovo will be launched at full capacity at the end of October 2020
This became known during a working visit of the Governor Alexey Ostrovsky to the Safonovo Industrial Park where the Head of the Region assessed intermediate results of the investment project implementation of Russkiy Lyon Ltd. related to construction of a flax-processing plant, including shop floors for production of long and short fiber, cottonization.
It should be reminded that Russkiy Lyon Ltd. (enters the department “textiles” of the agro-industrial holding company Promagro) is located in the Safonovo Industrial Park and at present construction works of a large modern flax-processing complex is in progress there — first over the past 30 years in Russia. Having reached the full capacity, the Plant will be one of the largest flax-processing plants in the country. The total investment value will amount to 2.5 bln. rubles. The social benefit will result in creation of 250 job openings. The relevant agreements were reached at the Russian Investment Forum in Sochi in February in February 2018. Currently the total land bank of Russkiy Lyon Ltd. in the Smolensk Region is 7 thousand ha in three districts in the Region — Dorogobuzh, Safonovo and Yartsevo. Over 4.5 thousand ha of fallow land is introduced in crop rotation, 2.3 thousand of which have been seeded with linen flax this year. The company plans to get harvest in amount of 8 thousand tons of retted straw. In the near future the company is also planning to increase its land bank up to 15 thousand ha by 2023. The machine and tractor fleet of the company have more than 150 units of farm machinery of Russian, Belarusian, French and Belgian manufacturers. This includes mechanical hoes, seeding machines, combine harvesters, self-propelled flax pullers, swath turners, pickup balers and others. Currently about 150 staff members are working in the company, 80 of them directly at the Plant. Mostly they are the citizens of Safonovo and Dorogobuzh districts. At the moment the construction of access road to the Plant is in progress. It is expected that the road will be put into operation by the end of the year.
According to the founder and the owner of the company Russkiy Lyon Ltd. Konstantin Klyuka the capacity of the built complex allows to process 11 thousand tons of retted straw a year and to produce 1.1 thousand tons of long flax, 2.6 thousand tons of cotton flax, as well as 2.5 thousand tons of shives used as raw material for heating of houses, farms, greenhouses, big and small enterprises. The finished products will be supplied both to Russian and foreign companies. Supplying of long fiber is already under negotiation between Ivanovo and Kostroma Regions. The cotton flax will be sold not only to Russian cotton spinning mills but it will be also exported to India and China.
“I want to emphasize that thanks to the help of the Administration of the Region in investment project implementation, as well as their help in issues concerning utility lines, formation of land bank and others, the Plant will start working in full capacity at the end of October,” noted Konstantin Klyuka. “I am very grateful that you pay attention to our Plant’s operation.”
Alexey Ostrovsky examined shop floors of long and short fiber, cottonization. In addition, the Head of the Region got acquainted with samples of finished products that will be released at the Plant.
“I treat this project with great attention as this is the first modern flax-processing complex in the country over the past 30 years. In addition, the investor is fulfilling all the obligations on his part. This project is extremely important to us both because of the new job openings and because of the taking back the lead in flax production that the Smolensk region used to have in the Soviet period,” emphasized Alexey Ostrovsky.