Gazprom updates progress on Amur gas processing project

PJSC Gazprom has completed 61.9% of construction activities on subsidiary OOO Gazprom Pererabotka Blagoveshchensk's 42 billion-cu m/year grassroots Amur natural gas processing plant (GPP) near Svobodny in Russia’s far-east Amur region (OGJ Online, Apr. 27, 2020; Apr. 12, 2018).

As of May 28, installation of core equipment at the first and second production trains—which are scheduled to come onstream in 2021—is completed, process pipelines are being installed and provided with thermal insulation, and startup and commissioning activities are now under way, Gazprom said.

At the GPP’s third production train, installation of process pipelines is also under way, while installation of steel structures and foundations for large equipment is nearing completion at the fourth train.

At the fifth and sixth production trains, alongside pouring of foundations, pipe racks and steel structures also are under assembly, Gazprom said.

With the opening of the navigation season, large equipment—which in 2020, will include 43 units weighing a total of 7,700 tonnes—can now be delivered by sea and river vessels to the Amur GPP’s wharf, according to the company.

Construction of the 160-Mw Svobodny powerplant, which will supply Amur GPP with heat and electricity starting late 2020, remains ongoing, with steam generators already in place and work now under way on the plant’s steam turbines and auxiliary equipment.

The plant includes six production lines, with the first two lines slated for commissioning in 2021. The remaining lines will be consecutively put in operation before yearend 2024. GPP is scheduled to reach full operational capacity by 2025, Gazprom said.

The late-May Amur GPP progress update follows Gazprom’s late-2019 securing of €11.4 billion in project financing from 22 European, Asian, and Russian banks to complete construction of the project (OGJ Online, Dec. 26, 2019).

The Amur GPP 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 in 2021 (OGJ Online, May 21, 2014).

Alongside 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 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).