Gazprom begins operations at Amur gas processing plant

PJSC Gazprom subsidiary OOO Gazprom Pererabotka Blagoveshchensk (GPB) has commissioned the initial phase of its 42-billion cu m/year (bcmy) grassroots Amur natural gas processing plant (AGPP) near Svobodny in Russia’s Far East Amur region (OGJ Online, Oct. 29, 2020).

The first of AGPP’s six production trains officially began operating on June 9, processing multicomponent gas it receives via the Power of Siberia gas pipeline from the Gazprom Eastern Gas Program’s (EGP) Yakutia gas production center at eastern Russia’s Chayandinskoye field, Gazprom said.

Commissioning of the AGPP’s remaining five trains—one of which remains scheduled for startup by yearend 2021—will be synchronized with increased gas volumes delivered by Power of Siberia from the Irkutsk gas production center at EGP’s Kovyktinskoye field, where work currently is underway to prepare for full-scale production, according to the operator.

Slated to reach full-design capacity in 2025 and equipped with cryogenic gas separation technology licensed by Linde AG, the €11.4-billion AGPP forms part of Gazprom’s implementation of its EGP to integrate field developments, pipeline, and natural gas production centers in East Siberia and Russia’s Far East to support the company’s commitment to supply 38 billion cu m/year of Russian natural gas into China over 30 years (OGJ Online, May 29, 2020).

Once fully online, the AGPP—which receives process steam and electricity generated by Gazprom’s Svobodny thermal power plant commissioned in April 2021—will produce about 2.4 million tonnes/year (tpy) of ethane, 1 million tpy of propane, 500,000 tpy of butane, 200,000 tpy of pentane-hexane fraction, and as much as 60 million-cu m/year of helium.

The bulk of ethane produced at the complex will be delivered as feedstock to the PJSC Sibur Holding (60%)-China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (Sinopec, 40%) joint venture Amur GCC LLC’s nearby 2.7-million tpy integrated Amur gas chemical complex (AGCC) currently under construction near Svobodny (OGJ Online, June 7, 2021).

Now scheduled for commissioning in 2024, AGCC will produce 2.3 million tpy of polyethylene and 400,000 tpy of polypropylene, Sibur said in a Dec. 28, 2020 release.

AGPP gas feedstock

Commissioned in 2019, Chayandinskoye field—one of eastern Russia’s largest—produces about 25 bcmy of gas. The field holds 1.2 trillion cu m of recoverable gas reserves, according to Gazprom.

Holding recoverable gas reserves of 1.8 trillion cu m—the largest in eastern Russia—Kovyktinskoye field will produce 27 bcmy once on stream in 2022.

Both Chayandinskoye and Kovyktinskoye fields form the resource base for the Power of Siberia pipeline, which began gas deliveries from Chayandinskoye to China in 2019 (OGJ Online, Dec. 6, 2019).

As part of its extension of the Power of Siberia system, Gazprom also recently completed construction of 98 km of a planned 803-km natural gas pipeline to link Kovyktinskoye field to Chayandinskoye field (OGJ Online, Jan. 27, 2021).