Nevertheless, the company Nypro, owner of the site, was experiencing serious economic problems. In reality, the unit only produced 47 000 tons of caprolactam per year. Last but not least, the government had been with a miners’ strike since 1973. They declared a state of emergency and established a three day working week to save electricity. It was not possible to operate the process on this basis. So emergency generators were used to run the essential equipment and other equipment, such as the six stirrers in the cyclohexane reactors, was stopped.