OREANDA-NEWS  The deputies of the State Duma adopted in the third reading a law that allows enterprises producing ethyl alcohol from non-food raw materials (sawdust) to work with a quarterly load of less than 70 percent, Interfax reports.

The meaning of such an amendment was previously explained by Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Sazanov by the fact that such alcohol is used for military needs, is used in defense production, and therefore its release directly depends on the needs of defense industry enterprises.

Hence, there are risks of not fitting into the norm on the minimum use of production capacity due to circumstances beyond the control of the enterprise. As a result, the plant's license is canceled, and it takes a long time to restore it.

Three months ago, it was reported that due to the closure of European markets and a drop in domestic consumption, Russian methanol plants are reducing production to a minimum and selling products to China at a big discount.