SIBUR to select contractors for construction of polypropylene facility in Tobolsk by winter
VLADIVOSTOK. Sept 15 (Interfax) - SIBUR will select the contractors for the construction of the DGP-2 polypropylene facility in Tobolsk by winter at the latest, the Russian petrochemical group's executive director Pavel Lyakhovich said in an interview with Interfax.
He also said he does not see a need to bring in partners for the project or raise project financing. "We have our own propane, we have obligations to the government that we assumed at one time by signing the agreement on the reverse excise. It's not really clear why we should reconfigure," Lyakhovich said.
"For now we're financing with our own funds, we don't see project financing there. There will be our own and borrowed funds," he said, adding that lenders are happy to give the company loans.
The product from the facility will be shipped out by train and truck and there is no need to build additional infrastructure, he said. "Railway and automobile transport, traditionally. The proportions depend on where the product goes, to Russia or abroad," Lyakhovich said.
"The new production facility in Tobolsk will make it possible to produce about a hundred types of propylene and some of them have not been produced in Russia before," Lyakhovich said. For example, it is expected to produce terpolymers, which are used to produce certain types of BOPP film and other types of packaging. This would eliminate the need to import them.
The project involves building a propane dehydrogenation unit with capacity for 550,000 tonnes per year and a polypropylene production facility with capacity of 570,000 tonnes per year at ZapSibNeftekhim, which already has capacity to produce 1 million tonnes of polypropylene. The preliminary cost estimate for the project is about 195 billion rubles.
The company plans to complete placing orders for all process equipment for these facilities by December; some of the equipment has already been ordered. Mechanical completion of the project is expected in September 2026 and production is scheduled to launch in 2027.
"We have the licenses for the technology for the new project. They were purchases earlier and are irrevocable. The production process can be outfitted with equipment by suppliers from Russia and friendly countries. Compared to projects carried out earlier, such an approach presumes that a larger amount of engineering work will fall on the company's specialists than if we still had the option for supplies of proprietary equipment. The construction and installation work will be done primarily by Russian contractors," SIBUR CEO Mikhail Karisalov said earlier.