Istvan Fejes-Toth August 31, 2026

Limited Work Resumes at Semcorp’s Debrecen Plant

Employees at Semcorp’s Debrecen plant have once again been permitted to carry out a limited range of non-production-related activities in the buildings. This is in line with guidance from the fire safety authority, which confirmed during an on-site inspection last week that the specific deficiencies previously identified in connection with the fire safety system had been appropriately remedied, the company said in a post, thanking the fire safety authority for its constructive cooperation.

In recent days, Semcorp published an open letter in which it stated that an independent expert report on groundwater conditions at the Debrecen site found no contamination, either in the case of aluminium or any of the other 12 metals examined.

The investigation was launched after the authorities suspended production activities on 24 June, based on a laboratory report showing extremely high concentrations of several metals in groundwater samples taken in March.

In this regard, the new expert assessment concluded that, rather than reporting dissolved-metal concentrations, the March laboratory report had reported total-metal concentrations. This suggests that the high values recorded in that report were probably indicative of metals occurring naturally in the soil, rather than the actual levels of metals dissolved in the groundwater. Under the relevant Hungarian regulations, however, the metal content of groundwater must be assessed on the basis of dissolved concentrations, excluding metals present in the soil or other solid materials.

Source and photo credit: dehir.hu