Republic factories – the history of a dead industry

They used to be the pride of the country, and today, the ruins reminiscent of the Republica Factories in Bucharest create a depressing landscape. This is the terrible fate of the former Romanian steel factories.

In the 70s, Uzinele Republica was the fifth largest producer of seamless pipes in the world. Having a production capacity of about 2,000,000 tons per year, being the largest in Romania. Rumor has it that, if Romania didn’t have these pipes, it wouldn’t have an oil industry either.

Its decline started once with the privatizations. In 2003, the plant is sold to a consortium of 4 Russian companies. The buyers then undertook to make investments of 4.7 million euros in the next three years, which, although they promised to invest massively, did not undertake anything.

The workers seized the representative of the consortium of companies, requesting him to pay the outstanding wages. The 1,000 employees from the Republic had to receive, at that time, outstanding salaries with an average value of 30 million lei, and the outstanding salary fund amounts to over one million dollars.

The decline of the plant had already entered a very slippery slope. Due to non-compliance of the sale-purchase contract by the buyer, APAPS decided to cancel it.

Republica factories – the machines are dismantled and transferred to Maharashtra

In November 2008, the company Indiana Maharashtra Seamless won the auction for the sale of the machines. They made up the oil pipe manufacturing line of Uzinel Republica, which is in bankruptcy proceedings.

The manufacturing equipment of the Romanian factories was dismantled and transferred to a new production unit in India. The seamless pipe manufacturing machines of the Republica factory, had an annual capacity of 200,000 tons, increased by more than 50% the total production capacity of Maharashtra.

In its heyday, the pipes were exported to 33 countries, especially those from North Africa and the Near East.

The land and spaces of the old factory have acquired, over time, other destinations.

Article source: https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzina_Republica