PJSC Gazprom, through its general contractor partner NIPIgazpererabotka (Nipigaz), has let a contract to China Gezhouba Group Corp. (CGGC), Wuhan, Hubei Province, to provide construction and assembly services for process equipment at subsidiary OOO Gazprom Pererabotka Blagoveshchensk's (GPB) 42 billion-cu m/year grassroots Amur natural gas processing plant under construction near Svobodny in Russia’s far-east Amur region (OGJ Online, July 29, 2015).
CGGC will serve as contractor for a project involving associated construction works as well as installation of cryogenic gas separation units at the Amur gas processing plant, Gazprom said.
While a subcontractor for the installation project has yet to be named, Gazprom confirmed one will be selected from among Russian construction companies.
The operator disclosed neither the value nor duration of the contract, which follows GPB’s previous contract let to Linde AG, Munich, for licensing of its proprietary cryogenic gas separation technology for all five phases of the gas processing plant, including engineering and supply of units for ethane and natural gas liquids extraction and nitrogen rejection, as well as for helium purification, liquefaction, and storage (OGJ Online, Jan. 21, 2016).
Most recently, GPB let a €3.9-billion contract to a consortium of Maire Tecnimont SPA subsidiary Tecnimont SPA and Sinopec Engineering (Group) Co. Ltd. subsidiary Sinopec Ningbo Engineering Corp. to provide all engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, and performance testing services for utilities, infrastructure, and off-site installations of the Amur gas processing plant, Maire Tecnimont and Sinopec Engineering said in separate June releases.
Integral to commissioning of the entire Amur complex, works under the utilities, infrastructure, and off sites contract package are due to be completed in 2023, according to the service providers.
At an overall estimated cost of €11.5 billion, the Amur gas processing plant comes as part of Gazprom’s implementation of its Eastern Gas Program (EGP) to integrate field developments, pipeline, and natural gas production centers in East Siberia and Russia’s Far East, the Amur plant will process multicomponent gas it receives from EGP’s Irkutsk and Yakutia gas production centers via the Power of Siberia gas pipeline to support Gazprom’s commitment to supply 38 billion cu m/year of Russian natural gas into China over 30 years beginning sometime between May 2019 and May 2021 (OGJ Online, May 21, 2014).
Gazprom officially broke ground on construction of the first of the plant’s six processing trains in October 2015 for a targeted Train-1 startup sometime in 2018 (OGJ Online, Apr. 4, 2017).
In addition to producing about 2.5 million tpy of ethane, 1 million tpy of propane, 500,000 tpy of butane, and 200,000 tpy of pentane-hexane fraction, the Amur gas processing complex also will produce as much as 60 million-cu m/year of helium based on feedstock from the Chayandinskoye field, which together with the company’s other reserves in East Siberia, forms one of the largest helium reservoirs in the world (OGJ Online, Dec. 19, 2012).
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
