Lukoil has resumed production of ethylene and propylene at its 350,000-tonne/year Stavrolen petrochemical complex in Budennovsk, Russia, following a February 2014 fire that broke out in the plant’s ethylene production unit gas separation area (OGJ Online, Feb. 27, 2014).
As part of the repair and maintenance work, which was completed according to the approved schedule, Lukoil also carried out a project to expand the ethylene unit’s capacity to process straight-run naphtha and LPG feedstock supplied to Stavrolen via rail from the company’s Russian refineries and gas processing plants, Lukoil said.
The upgrading project included reconstruction of cracking furnaces, fuel gas skids, gas feedstock evaporation complexes, and water-flush columns, the company said.
Lukoil said it resumed polypropylene production at Stavrolen using imported feedstock as far back as October 2014.
The company, however, did not disclose current ethylene production rates at the complex.
In 2012, Lukoil announced project plans for the Stavrolen industrial site designed to equip the complex to process gas produced in the northern Caspian (OGJ Online, Sept. 25, 2012).
In addition to the modernization of existing ethylene and polyethylene units at the Stavrolen complex, the first stage of a 2 billion cu m/year gas processing plant also was scheduled to be commissioned this year, Lukoil has said.
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
