Lonza site’s presence on Visp VS couldn’t be brighter. The Swiss chemical and pharmaceutical group has invested billions in Upper Valais in just a few years, triggering a business miracle with thousands of new jobs. But now the long shadows of the past are catching up with the group.
Between 1918 and 1978 Lonza operated a toxic waste dump in Gamsenried, not far from Visp, and needed to rehabilitate it. The group allocated CHF 285 million for this work last year. But that won’t be enough. As “Tages-Anzeiger” writes, costs are likely to be between 1 and 1.5 billion francs. The newspaper writes, citing sources from the authorities, that the canton of Valais has requested from Lonza a financial guarantee, which the group will provide within the next few days.
Renovation in Kölliken cost about $1 billion
News that investors don’t like at all. Lonza shares were temporarily down 3.7 percent Thursday morning and were 2.5 percent lower at noon than the previous day.
Last year, the group repeatedly stressed that CHF 285 million would be sufficient for most of the renovations. “This is very realistic,” said Lonza CEO Pierre-Alain Ruffieux (52), referring to a long-term study and several hundred test wells at “Walliser Bote” in the summer of 2021.
A look at the improvement of the Kölliken AG hazardous waste landfill, operated by Syngenta, Novartis, BASF, Clariant and Roche, shows how defensive the CHF 285 million calculation is. The work took thirteen years and cost more than 900 million francs.
Renovation is a generational project
Renovations at Gamsenried will likely take much longer. Lonza talks about an intergenerational project. The effort is huge. Large area may contain pollutants such as mercury, aniline, benzidine and benzene. But time is running out. Substances pose a threat to groundwater and can already be detected at the outlet.
Quick application is of particular interest to the local population. For shareholders, the focus is on costs. If they amount to more than a billion francs, the share price of the chemical and pharmaceutical company would fall even more sharply. (smt)