Page 10 - FSUOGMWeek472019

FSUOGM PROJECTS & COMPANIES FSUOGM
KazMunayGas’s Atyrau petrochemical complex is half finished
KAZAKHSTAN
KAZAKHSTAN’S state-owned KazMunayGas is reportedly on track to finish half of the con- struction work on its petrochemical complex in the western region of Atyrau this year.
The Samruk-Kazyna sovereign wealth fund said on November 25 that the project would “completed by 50% by the end of this year” and that it was on track to be finished in 2021. The fund transferred control of the $2.6bn project to KazMunayGas in June 2018, following delays that saw just 6% of the project completed since its inception in 2016.
The fund said at the time that state-owned United Chemical Co. (UCC) would build the facility to produce polypropylene from gas supplied from the Tengiz field. Once finished, the project will have a production capacity of 500,000 tonnes per year (tpy) and will employ more than 2,000 people.
The facility is located in National Industrial Petrochemical Technopark special economic zone (SEZ), whose main projects revolve around polypropylene and polyethylene production.
Vice Minister of Energy Aset Magauov projected in May that the total value of investment in such projects would reach $9bn by 2032. The country has 12 SEZs and 23 industrial zones and hopes to launch around 320 projects by 2021.
French industrial gases and services supplier Air Liquide announced in October that it had signed a long-term agreement with Kazakhstan Petrochemical Industries (KPI) to build own and operate a new nitrogen unit close to facility. The project will be led by Air Liquide Munay Tech Gases, a 75:25 joint venture between Air Liquide and KazMunayGas.
Air Liquide said it would invest €15mn (16.52mn) in the unit, which would supply the petrochemical plant with up to 8,000 normal cubic metres per hour of nitrogen. The French company also said the project was due to come on stream in the second quarter of 2021.
According to Samruk-Kazyna’s original project plans, a 310-MW gas-fired thermal power plant (TPP) will also be built along with a technical gases complex and a water processing facility.™
Kazakhstan rejects Karachaganak settlement offer
KAZAKHSTAN
KAZAKHSTAN has walked away from an $1.1bn offer the Karachaganak development consortium made in October 2018 in the hope of settling a long-running profit-sharing dispute.
Kazakh First Deputy Energy Minister Makhambet Dosmukhambetov said on Novem- ber 26 that the government had rejected the offer on the grounds that it was insufficient.
“We are not satisfied with the sum that was previously agreed,” First Deputy Energy Minis- ter Makhambet Dosmukhambetov told report- ers. “New circumstances have been uncovered.”
The minister did not give a figure for how much the government was looking for, nor did he reveal any details surrounding the new
circumstances.
In September, however, Bloomberg quoted
unnamed sources as saying the consortium – which is led by Royal Dutch Shell and Eni – might have to raise its offer by a further $1bn to settle the dispute.
The report came the same month that Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev said his govern- ment expected an arbitration ruling on its $1.6bn claim – lodged in 2015 – to be handed down in 2020. The country claims that it has not received a fair share of the profits from the condensate project.
The original offer by the consortium had agreed to amend the production-sharing
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 47 27•November•2019