Gazprom finds new partner to produce polyethylene in Astrakhan
POSYOLOK RAZVILKA, Moscow Region. Dec 1 (Interfax) - Gazprom might partner with LLC Caspian Innovation Company (CIC) on the construction of a polyethylene plant based at the Astrakhan Gas Processing Plant instead of petrochemical group Sibur, with which negotiations on the project were held in the last decade.
CIC as registered in Astrakhan in September, the SPARK-Interfax database shows. The company's founders are Sergei Shtepa and LLC Promaktiv, which is owned by Viktoria Shtepa Skiyerkovski.
Shtepa presented his project at the Gas Chemicals 2016 conference at the Gazprom VNIIGAZ institute. He said the "initiator of the company's creation was JSC Metaklei," of which Shtepa is the CEO.
Gazprom bought Metaklei, which produces anticorrosion coating for large-diameter gas pipelines, from Rusnano and other shareholders earlier this year.
The feedstock for the project will come from the Astrakhan gas condensate field. Gazprom Dobycha Astrakhan currently delivers 6.878 billion cubic meters of commercial gas, including 271 million cubic meters of ethane fraction (equivalent to 330,000 tonnes) per year, Shtepa said.
The project calls for supplying the ethane fraction to the gas chemical plant and the space freed up in the pipeline can be used to ship additional Gazprom commercial gas.