Linde receives engineering contract for ethylene plant from SIBUR in Russia

22-Jun-12

Technology company The Linde Group has received an engineering contract for the licensing and front end engineering design (FEED) of one of the world's largest ethylene plants in Tobolsk, Western Siberia. The contract was awarded by Russia's largest petrochemical company, SIBUR LLC. The two companies signed an agreement today in St. Petersburg. "We are delighted to be working on this project and continuing our successful collaboration with Russia's most important petrochemical company," said Professor Dr Aldo Belloni, Member of the Executive Board of Linde AG. "We also hope that this agreement will lead to further key contracts for our engineering business in this Eastern European growth market." The ethylene plant is to be built at the petrochemical complex "ZapSibNeftekhim" in Tobolsk, which is being planned by the company ZapsibNeftekhim, a subsidiary of SIBUR. Once finished, the new plant will produce around 1.5 mln tpa of ethylene, 500,000 tpa of propene and 100,000 tpa of butadiene from the feedstocks ethane, propane and n-butane. The products produced by the plant are important building blocks for the plastics manufacturing industry. The FEED services provided by Linde are the first step in the project to realise the new plant. The Group’s work will provide a foundation for the detailed engineering and construction phase. Linde’s services also include a cost estimate, which will be used by SIBUR to inform the final investment decision. Linde is currently constructing a polypropylene plant for SIBUR at its Tobolsk site. The unit has an annual capacity of 500,000 tons and is set to go on stream next year. This project is currently one of the key investments in Russia’s petrochemical industry.