Who Ships the Cheap Half of Your Caustic Potash?
Vynova told an extraordinary works council on Tuesday that Tessenderlo-Ham stops, unit by unit, and is fully dark by November 5. Eight days later the debt-restructuring plan is due, and the court cannot extend the clock past December 26. Belgium has been more than half your imported potassium hydroxide this year, at a third of what everyone else charges, and two plants in that country could be behind it.
Vynova Belgium called an extraordinary works council on Tuesday morning and told it that Tessenderlo-Ham is going down.
Not all at once. The installations come off one by one over two weeks, and everything must be stopped by November 5.
The reason given is energy. Spokesman Yannick Brusselmans said the company has to limit its cash outflow as far as it can, which is a company telling you it is now cheaper to make nothing.
Eight days after the last unit goes cold, the debt-restructuring plan is due at the Hasselt enterprise court. And that court has already said this extension is the last one.
"Belgium is the cheapest caustic potash on the US customs line. Which plant over there has been shipping it?"
The Clock Nobody Can Extend
Vynova Belgium has been in judicial reorganisation since December 26, 2025, and the original stay ran four months.
It has been extended three times since: to June 26, then September 26, then to this Christmas.
The September extension came with terms. Industrielinqs reported on September 9 that the procedure now runs to and including December 26 and cannot be extended any further, that a debt-restructuring plan must be in place by November 13 at the latest, and that no binding bid existed. Debt is over 275 million euros. The Flemish government is already in for a 22 million euro guarantee.
So the sequence on the calendar reads: plant fully dark November 5 → plan filed November 13 → procedure expires December 26.
Roughly 600 people work for Vynova Belgium on the site, with another 100 at Vynova Advanced Organics. The company is weighing temporary economic unemployment and has not said how it will apply it.
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