Sold for Scrap: Albanian Town Rues Demise of an Oil Giant

This time, the "dead" thing is an oil refinery in the town of Ballshi, the seat of the southern Albanian region of Mallakastra.

Shijaku bought the refinery for scrap earlier this year with a loan of nine million euros from its owner, Credins Bank. Once it's picked apart, a solar park will rise in its place by the end of 2023, he says.

"This is good for the Mallakastra area," he told BIRN, "so that this gangrene does not affect future generations."

Behind the narrative of renewables replacing fossil fuels, however, is a story of immense mismanagement, neglect and alleged corruption.

Founded in the 1970s under the Stalinist rule of Enver Hoxha, Ballshi Combine was the biggest of Albania's three refineries, its crude production hitting 1.8 million tonnes 1978 and bankrolling efforts by the paranoid Communist regime to militarise the country against would-be invaders and cement its hold on power.

Ballshi, a typical, communist-era one-industry town that was built to serve the refinery, became blighted by pollution, but the region enjoyed an income that was the envy of much of the rest of Albania. Today, its residents fear for the future.

"It's not just the refinery - the whole region has been stepped on," said Adrian Hoxha, a 31-year veteran of the refinery who wonders where hundreds of his former co-workers will now find jobs. "This marks the funeral of Mallakastra."

Permit pending

On a March day in Ballshi, the price of diesel near the municipality office was 191 leks, or 1.6 euros. That's higher than anyone in Ballshi can ever remember. Thanks to the refinery, the town's 7,000 residents used to enjoy oil prices at least 50 leks less than their compatriots elsewhere in Albania.

"Since...