For Romanian petrochemicals and PVC producer Oltchim (Ramnicu Valcea; www.oltchim.ro) a loss of roughly EUR 33m for the first half of the year feels like success when compared to the same period in 2012 when the ailing company recorded losses of EUR 42m. At the same time, revenues for the company, which has been in insolvency since the beginning of the year, declined from EUR 121m to EUR 46.8m – see Plasteurope.com of 28.01.2013.

The numbers mirror the reality of the overall situation that Oltchim has dug for itself over the last several years. There is little production going on due, in part, to broken down facilities which have gone unrepaired as there is no investment being made to fix them, as well as a lack of raw materials, which are simply not being purchased. The current operational plant utilisation is estimated to be around 18%. In June, the company made 900 employees redundant followed by a July announcement that management would be placing 715 employees on "technical unemployment" from end of July through end of September, paying 80% of their base salaries. Meanwhile, the work week has been cut down to four days for the company's petrochemicals business.

According to local media, three investors have come forward with concrete plans for the future of Oltchim and another 7 candidates have submitted letters of intent and with time now being taken to perform due diligence on each offer. The buzz in Romania is that a restructuring plan will be ready by October. It has also been reported that the ministry of economics has strongly suggested detaching the company's three areas of business activities – technical, production and functional – into three distinct new entities.

Apparently, one of the frontrunners interested in taking over Oltchim is the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (Socar, Baku; www.socar.az), which is currently running the numbers and checking the books. Whether the Azerbaijanis, who also happen to be majority shareholders in the Turkish petrochemicals entity Petkim – see Plasteurope.com of 29.05.2013 – will fare better than German main minority shareholder PCC (Duisburg; www.pcc.eu) did in its attempts to put together a bid and a plan before talks broke off a few weeks ago, remains to be seen. PCC had recommended a restructuring which would have entailed a splitting up and selling off the company's individual assets, which, in addition to the petrochemicals and plastics production, include medical clinics, real estate administration and several cafeterias. In essence, their plan suggested a thorough house cleaning of the overall current company and anything not tossed aside, would be refurbished and given a chance to start over. However, as this plan would have meant cutting around 50% of the 3,400 jobs at Oltchim, the country's prime minister, Victor Ponta, and his government were not particularly thrilled with this option for the troubled entity.