Kazanorgsintez lets contract for Kazan petrochemical complex

PJSC Kazanorgsintez has let a contract to Maire Tecnimont SPA to deliver engineering and procurement (EP) for a new polyolefins production unit to be installed at the operator’s existing 1.7-million tonne/year (tpy) petrochemical complex in Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia.

As part of the Aug. 5 contract, subsidiaries Tecnimont Planung & Industrieanlagenbau GMBH and MT Russia LLC will provide EP services for a grassroots 100,000-tpy low-density polyethylene (LDPE)-ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) plant, Maire Tecnimont said.

Awarded under a lump-sum scheme for EP services and a reimbursable scheme for the equipment and material supply, the €130-million will run for about 40 months from the contract signing date to the project’s completion, according to the service provider.

To be based on technology licensed by Sumitomo Chemical Co. Ltd. of Japan that enables flexible production of LDPE and EVA from a single plant, the new LDPE-EVA unit—which will replace an existing but outdated unit at the complex—will use a specially designed autoclave reactor that increases efficiency of feedstock consumption and utilities to help reduce production costs and negative environmental impacts, Kazanorgsintez said in a Feb. 19 release.

Currently Russia’s sole EVA producer, Kazanorgsintez—which meets about 20% of EVA demand on the domestic market—said the new LDPE-EVA plant will increase the complex’s EVA production by more than sevenfold, allowing the operator to eliminate current EVA imports as well as provide additional volumes for export abroad.

Kazan complex overview

In addition to its existing three-unit LDPE production plant, Kazanorgsintez’s Kazan complex houses the territory’s largest ethane cracker, which produces ethylene and propylene for use as feedstock in the site’s downstream plants for production of LDPE, high-density polyethylene (HDPE), bimodal HDPE, medium-density polyethylene, linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE), and metallocene LLDPE, according to the operator’s website.

The complex receives its ethane fraction feedstock from PJSC Gazprom’s Orenburg helium plant in Kholodnye Klyuchi, Orenburg Region, Russia, and PJSC Tatneft subsidiary Tatneftegazpererabotka’s (UTNGP) Minnibayevo gas processing plant in Tatarstan’s Almetyevsk region.