During the 16th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Sibur, the Russia’s leading petrochemical company, and Linde AG (Germany), a world-leading gases and engineering company, entered into an agreement on design development for an ethylene cracker unit of ZapSibNeftekhim in Tobolsk, Tyumen Region. The intended annual production capacity of the unit is 1.5 million tonnes of ethylene. The unit is set to become the largest facility of that type in the Russian petrochemical industry. The agreement was signed by Leonid Mikhelson, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sibur Holding JSC, Professor Dr Wolfgang Reitzle, Сhairman of Executive Board and Chief Executive Officer of Linde AG, and Professor Dr Aldo Belloni, Member of the Executive Board of Linde AG.
The signing of the agreement was witnesses by Mr. Gerhard Schroeder, Chairman of the Shareholders Committee Nord Stream AG, and Mr. Dmitry Konov, CEO of Sibur.
Linde AG will be responsible for development of FEED (front end engineering design) documentation and the relevant sections of the overall design package.
“Sibur is commencing comprehensive development of its largest project which will change the image of the company and of the Russian petrochemical sector”, said Mikhelson, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sibur Holding JSC. “We hope that by engaging the world class licensors and engineering companies we will establish an efficient production facility to successfully compete in both the Russian and the foreign markets.”
“We are delighted to be working on this project and continuing our successful collaboration with Russia’s most important petrochemical company,” said Professor Dr Aldo Belloni, Member of the Executive Board of Linde AG. “We also hope that this agreement will lead to further key contracts for our engineering business in this Eastern European growth market.”
Earlier Sibur selected FEED partners and licensors for other units of ZapSibNeftekhim production complex.
Ineos Technologies was selected as a licensor of the four polyethylene production units with a combined annual capacity of 1.5 million tonnes. Technip has been awarded the Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) contracts.
LyondellBasell was chosen to be a licensor of the largest worldwide Spheripol polypropylene production unit with an annual capacity of 500,000 tonnes. ThyssenKrupp Uhde was engaged to develop the FEED documentation for such unit.
Thus, annual production capacity of the new ZapSibNeftekhim petrochemical complex will reach 2 million tonnes of polymers.
While selecting licensors for its new complex, Sibur aimed at getting the world’s most advanced and reliable petrochemical technologies to maximise performance and ensure environmental safety of the new plants.
All FEED packages are scheduled to be finalized in 2013.
