Reheating The Economy: Kosovo Nickel Plant Fires Up After 20-Month Closure, 24 June 2023

In October 2021, Hajdari’s employer Newco Ferronikeli stopped production due to skyrocketing energy prices in Europe.

The 60-year-old worker told RFE/RL’s Balkan Service that the shutdown was deeply distressing “because after a long career, to have your job stopped just before retirement is not good,” he said.

Production at the plant was restarted on June 21 after three weeks of preparation to prime the facility’s massive machinery....

Nickel ore deposits were first discovered in the landscape surrounding Drenas in the late 1950s. The nickel plant was built in 1984 when Kosovo was an autonomous province within Serbia, itself a part of Yugoslavia. The factory was badly damaged during the 1999 NATO bombing campaign.

Nickel is a corrosive-resistant metal used in the production of stainless steel and consumer items such as batteries and some magnets.

After the October 2021 shutdown, protests were held in which workers called on Pristina to step in. According to company officials, in the first year after production stopped, workers were paid 50 percent of their wages. More recently, the staff of around 1,000 began receiving 75 percent of their salaries and worked half-time to maintain equipment in the factory....

Newco Ferronikeli is one of the largest exporters in Kosovo. In 2019, before the pandemic threw global trade into turmoil, the company shipped nickel worth 51 million euros -- around 13 percent of all exports from Kosovo by value.

Although the plant is of huge economic importance to the region, it has been criticized for its environmental impact amid fears that toxic waste at the site could endanger air quality and drinking water...

At the reopening on June 21, Cemil Acar from Yildirim Group, said "our objective is to make Ferronikeli an active, efficient company that has a significant contribution to the economy of Kosovo.”