Kim Jong Il, after becoming angered by his onsite-inspection of the Heungnam Fertilizer Factory in Hamheung, South Hamkyung Province on the 7th, visited the Nakwon Machine Complex in Shinuiju, North Pyongan Province on the following day.
The reason is that the Nakwon Machine Complex, a factory that produces excavators, construction equipment and munitions, has been producing equipment for the Heungnam Fertilizer Factory. The Heungnam Fertilizer Factory is being expanded to include a new factory to extract fuel gas from coal, which will help to increase production.
A source from North Pyongan Province explained that the sole reason why Kim Jong Il visited the Nakwon Machine Complex was to encourage the production of equipment for the expansion.
According to the source, “The General (Kim Jong Il) became extremely angry while looking around the Heungnam Fertilizer Factory in Hamheung during early February. He erupted there, ahead of further inspections of complexes in Hamheung scheduled to include the Yongsung Machinery General Bureau and February 8 Vinylon Complex, and apparently then cancelled all other visits on his schedule and went to inspect the Nakwon Machine Complex.
The source explained in depth, “The officials at the Heungnam Fertilizer Factory had reported that they could produce 300,000 tons of fertilizer by the end of June last year, but only managed 120,000 tons. This year, they reported that they could produce 600,000 tons by June after completing the expansion of the factory and the repair of equipment.”
“While discussing strategy for fertilizer production in meetings with factory workers, Kim became irate. It had become wholly apparent that the officials had been lying about production levels,” the source concluded.
Historically, the annual production capacity of the Heungnam Fertilizer Factory was around one million tons until the mid-1980s. From 1987 to1993, the period of the third seven-year plan, it started remodeling equipment with the goal of modernizing the production process in order to produce 1.6 million tons.
During this period, the factory had planned to replace ageing piston air compressors with modern turbine ones, and eventually abandoned the 16 preexisting compressors. However, obtaining the turbine air compressors became impossible after the fall of the Soviet Union, and the factory came to a complete standstill.
Eventually, however, engineers were able to recover four piston compressors, which had been abandoned as waste, and began to run the factory. An additional six were recovered by 2003. However, that meant there were only ever 7 or 8 compressors operational. As a result, the current production capacity of the Heungnam Fertilizer Factory amounts to just 100,000 tons of 20% nitrogen fertilizer.
The source said, “Despite this situation in the factory, the workers kept reporting that they could produce 300,000~600,000 tons. When the General discovered the truth of the situation, he ordered, ‘uproot the deceitful reporting of the officials.'”
He then added, “The General had believed the reports of the officials, ordering that ‘600,000 tons of fertilizer has to be produced at all costs by the end of June.’ However, while looking around the factory this time, he became angry to learn that even producing half that amount would be difficult.”
“Large-scale oxygen separators, which were to be set up at the Heungnam Fertilizer Factory, were being produced by the Yongsung Machinery General Bureau, but due to their difficult situation the Nakwon Machine Complex started producing some of the equipment instead. That is why the General went to inspect the Nakwon factory,” he concluded.
