Russia’s planned large-scale petrochemical to target the Chinese market

12-Mar-10

Based on Russia's plentiful feedstock resources, petrochemical major Sibur is studying the construction of large-scale petrochemical and polymer production as per ICIS. Since domestic demand is limited, the projects would be export-oriented, targeting China primarily. But building the necessary pipelines to transport the feedstock across huge distances to the cracker locations will be a mammoth task. Russia has the feedstock and capabilities to convert this feedstock into polyolefins at a competitive cost. Transvalgaz is exploring the feasibility of necessary gas processing and feedstock transportation from Western Siberia to North-West Russia. Sibur is also discussing with Gazprom a cracker project in Russia's Far East region, either in Vladivostok or Khabarovsk. Vladivostok is the preferred location because the port is ice-free.