Page 11 - FSUOGM Week 30 2021

FSUOGM PROJECTS & COMPANIES FSUOGM

Lukoil breaks ground on

polypropylene plant

RUSSIA RUSSIA’S largest independent oil producer Yury Borisov said at the ceremony, noting the
Lukoil has broken ground on a new polypropyl- benefit of such projects for reducing the coun-
Lukoil is expanding ene plant at its refinery in Nizhny Novgorod, the try’s reliance on imports and supporting local
into petrochemicals to company announced on July 22. manufacturing.
add value to its raw A foundation stone-laying ceremony was The new unit will be built at Lukoil’s 17mn
materials. held for the new facility, which at full capacity tpy (340,000 barrel per day) Kstovo refinery in
will produce 500,000 tonnes per year (tpy) of Nizhny Novogorod. The company awarded a
polypropylene. It will use some of the 4mn tpy of contract to US firm Lummus Technology to
propylene feedstock that the refinery currently license out its technology and provide design
produces at two catalytic cracking units. engineering, training and services, as well as cat-
Lukoil, like many other Russian oil and gas alyst supply, for the facility.
producers, is expanding into petrochemicals Lukoil has previously estimated that the facil-
in order to add value to its raw materials rather ity would cost $1bn to build. Its commissioning
than selling them to others for processing. It is expected in 2023.
already has petrochemical facilities in the Rus- Separately, the company also launched a new
sian regions of Stavropol and Saratov, as well as 150,000 tpy polymer-bitumen binders produc-
its refineries in Bulgaria and Italy. tion unit at the Kstovo plant on July 22. Bitumen is
“Every ruble invested into petrochemis- commonly used in road construction, and Lukoil
try multiples to four rubles or more in allied said the polymer-bitumen binders would allow for
industries,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister a significant increase in the lifetime of roads. ™

Russia to auction off two Arctic

gas fields in September

RUSSIA RUSSIA plans to auction off subsoil rights to two The Neitinskoye field contains 60.3bn cubic
gas fields on September 8 on the Arctic Gydan metres in C1 and 37.1 bcm in C2 gas reserves,
Novatek reportedly Peninsula near a project that Novatek is devel- along with 10.4mn tonnes (76mn barrels) of
requested that the oping, the country’s natural resources ministry oil and 0.5mn tonnes of condensate in C1+C2
licences be put up for announced on July 22. And the auction terms liquid resources. The Arkticheskoye field, mean-
sale. mean Novatek is effectively the only company while, holds 276 bcm of gas in C1 and 39.3 bcm
able to take part in the contest. in C1 gas, along with 13.4mn tonnes of oil and
The two fields are both in the vicinity of the 3.9mn tonnes of condensate.
Obsk LNG project, which was expected to pro- Novatek CEO Leonid Mikhelson
duce around 5mn tonnes per year (tpy) of LNG, requested in a letter to Russian President
but Novatek is considering reconfiguring it to Vladimir Putin that licences for the fields be
produce ammonia, hydrogen and methanol put up for sale in April. The company is eager
instead. Novatek is looking at potentially selling to build up its resource base in the Russian
a stake in the project to Japan’s Mitsui, the Mos- Arctic in order to underpin additional lique-
cow-based Kommersant newspaper reported in faction projects.
late June. Novatek secured rights to the North-Gy-
The starting price for bids for the Arktich- dansky block, also on the Gydan Peninsula, in
eskoye gas field is RUB9.9bn ($130mn), while March. That area is estimated to contain some
the starting price for the Neitinskoye field is 270 bcm of gas and Novatek paid RUB775mn
RUB2.1bn. Only companies that operate lique- ($10.2mn) for the licence.
faction facilities in the Yamalo-Nenets region The Russian company is aspiring to produce
can participate in the auctions, which effectively 70mn tonnes of LNG annually by 2030, up from
leaves Novatek as the sole contender. under 20mn tpy at present.™

Week 30 28•July•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P11