Tatneft may become investor in Ammonia-2 mineral fertilizer plant
KAZAN. March 10 (Interfax) - PJSC Tatneft is planning to participate in the implementation of a project for the construction of the Ammonia-2 mineral fertilizer plant, JSC Ammonia board chairman Renat Khanbikov said on Wednesday.
He said that a memorandum on the start of the implementation of the Ammonia-2 project was signed in Japan in February, in particular by Tatneft. "The next step will be a protocol, FEED preliminary work, and further the signing of a contract. Thus such a new project was started," Khanbikov said.
Answering a question about the role of Tatneft in the project, Khanbikov said that the company "wants to be an investor in this project, because it sees itself in it." "What's more its enterprises need products - ammonia and methanol," Khanbikov said.
He said that the second plant will be built next to the first. "We are looking at the same technology, because today it is demonstrating its effectiveness," Khanbikov said.
He said that the cost of the project will be determined later. "Naturally, [the cost of the project] will not be higher than the price it was]," the board chairman said.
Tatneft has not yet commented to Interfax on Khanbikov's statement.
It was reported earlier that the memorandum on the construction in Tatarstan of a second mineral fertilizer plant, Ammonia-2, was signed on February 29 in Tokyo. The document was signed by Khanbikov, PJSC Tatneft Director Nail Maganov, the management of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Sojitz Coporation, the companies belong to the number of subcontractors for the construction the first Ammonia plant.
The Ammonia plant began production in 2015. The complex includes the mixed aggregate of ammonia/methanol with a capacity of 717,500 tonnes of ammonia (without the production of methanol) a year or 455,000 tonnes of ammonia and 238,000 tonnes of methanol, and also an aggregate of granulated urea of the capacity 717,500 tonnes a year.
The general foreign subcontractor was a consortium of Japan's MHI, Sojitz Corporation and Chinese National Chemical Engineering Corporation, and also OJSC Research and Design Institute of Urea and Organic Synthesis Products in Dzerzhinsk, Russia.
The cost of the project was $1.4 billion, of which $1.05 billion were sent toward financing the work of the foreign consortium, in particular the acquisition of equipment, another $325 million - to the Russian contractor for the creation of infrastructure.
The main investors are the government of Tatarstan in the form of the republic's Investment Venture Fund and Vnesheconombank (VEB), which raised the main sum from Japanese banks.