KULOB, December 2, 2008, Asia-Plus  -- Some 200 workers with the Kulob brickworks have been given vacation without pay for uncertain period.

 According to the enterprise administration, this move has been introduced because the brickworks had been suspended from functioning because of lack of natural gas for brick-kilns.

“In the meantime, the enterprises has received orders for more than 2 million bricks for construction of a number facilities in the city and within the compound of Russian motorized rifle regiment 201 deployed in Kulob,” the source said, noting that one of the enterprise’s brick-kilns had been shifted to coal but it had not yielded necessary result.  

According to the Kulob mayor’s office, the city now receives not more than 6,000 cubic meters of natural gas per day from the Baljuvon field.

“It is not enough, because some 2,000 cubic meters are distributed to apartment buildings, while remaining 4,000 cubic meters are not enough to ensure regular functioning of the brickworks,” the Kulob official said, adding that the brickworks needs at least 8,000-10,000 cubic meters of natural gas per day.