RusGazDobycha’s Baltic Chemical lets EP contract for Ust-Luga complex

JSC RusGazDobycha subsidiary Baltic Chemical Complex LLC (BCC), through its contractor, has let a contract to Samsung Engineering Co. Ltd. to provide engineering and procurement (EP) for the ethane cracker of BCC’s $13-billion ethane-cracking complex, or gas chemical complex (GCC) portion, of the larger PJSC Gazprom-RusGazDobycha combined gas processing, liquefaction, and chemical complex for processing ethane-containing gas (CPECG) under construction at the Gulf of Finland near the seaport of Ust-Luga, Leningrad Oblast, Russia, 110 km southwest of St. Petersburg (OGJ Online, June 10, 2020).

Samsung Engineering’s scope of work under the €1-billion contract awarded directly by main contractor China National Chemical Engineering & Construction Corp. Seven Ltd. will include EP services on the GCC’s two-trained ethane cracker unit that, upon startup, will have a combined design capacity of 2.8 million tonnes/year (tpy), the service provider said on Feb. 9.

Officially awarded on Feb. 8, this latest EP contract for the GCC portion of the CPECG follows BCC’s previous €1.17-billion contract award to DL E&C Co. Ltd. in early January for unidentified EP services on the GCC project (OGJ Online, Jan. 3, 2022).

Alongside BCC’s GCC, the CPECG—which officially began construction in May 2021—also includes RusKhimAlyans’—a 50-50 special-purpose venture of Gazprom and RusGazDobycha—integrated natural gas processing and liquefaction complex (GPC of the CPECG), which will have 13-million tpy liquefaction capacity and initially process 45 billion cu m/year (bcmy) of wet natural gas feedstock it receives from Gazprom’s Achimov and Valanginian deposits in the Nadym-Pur-Taz region of the Yamal Peninsula (OGJ Online, May 24, 2021).

Once operable, the GPC will produce as much as 4 million tpy of ethane, and more than 2.2 million tpy of LPG, with ethane from the complex to feed nearby BCC’s ethane cracking project that will produce more than 3 million tpy of polymers (OGJ Online, Nov. 9, 2020). About 18 bcmy of gas remaining after processing at GPC—including ethane extraction, LPG, and 13 million tpy of LNG—will be exported from the site via Gazprom’s gas transmission lines (OGJ Online, Mar. 29, 2021).

RusGazDobycha most recently said it expects to wrap first-phase construction of the GCC during fourth-quarter 2023, with second-stage construction to be completed in fourth-quarter 2024.