Turkmenistan is moving forward with construction of a second grassroots gas-to-liquids plant to be built at Ovadan-Depe, near the country’s capital city of Ashgabat.
State-owned Turkmengaz will break ground on the GTL project in May with a foundation-laying ceremony for the plant, Turkmenistan’s Ministry of Oil and Mineral Resources (MOMR) said.
The industrial complex will process 3.7 billion cu m/year of natural gas to produce 1.1 million tonnes/year of diesel and more than 400,000 tpy of straight-run gasoline (naptha), MOMR said.
The announcement follows Turkmengaz’s previous contract award to a consortium of South Korean firms Hyundai Engineering Co. Ltd. and LG International Corp. as well as Japan’s Itochu Corp. for engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning of the project (OGJ Online, Apr. 14, 2015).
While MOMR did not disclose a proposed startup date for the new complex, LG previously said that, once under way, construction on the project would last about 63 months.
MOMR also confirmed that Turkmengaz now has completed construction of a first GTL plant in Ovadan-Depe (OGJ Online, Aug. 26, 2014).
Built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. and Ronesans Turkmen, this GTL complex will be the first full-scale, commercial plant to be based on Haldor Topsoe of Denmark’s proprietary Topsoe Improved Gasoline Synthesis (Tigas) technology.
Scheduled for startup in 2018, the complex will process 1.785 billion cu m/year of natural gas to produce 600,000 tpy of Euro 5-compliant A-92 gasoline as well as 300,000 tpy of liquefied gas, according to MOMR.
Other projects
An earlier announced plan by Turkmen and Japanese experts to construct 10 grassroots industrial plants in Turkmenistan based on advanced technologies for gas processing for production of 17 products, including gasoline, diesel, kerosine, polypropylene, polyethylene, caustic soda, PVC, acrylic fiber, and other gas-chemical products (OGJ Online, Sept. 22, 2015) is now completed, said MOMR.
MOMR did not elaborate on specific details regarding the plan, but it previously confirmed plants under the program would be built in Kiyanly, Balkan Province; Dashoguz Province; at the Turkmenbashi Complex of Oil Refineries (TCOR); and within the framework of the third-stage development of the Galkynysh gas field in Mary Province.
A consortium of Toyo Engineering Corp., Hyundai Engineering, and LG also continue to progress with construction of a separate grassroots petrochemical complex (OGJ Online, May 12, 2014) in Kiyanly, in the Turkmenbashi district of western Turkmenistan’s Balkan Province, MOMR said.
Still on schedule for startup in 2018, the complex will use natural gas sourced from shelf of the Caspian Sea to produce a combined 400,000 tpy of ethylene and high-density polyethylene, as well as 80,000 tpy of polypropylene, for export to markets mainly in Asia Pacific, the EU, and Turkey.
The Kiyanly complex will be based on ethylene and polypropylene production technologies from Lummus Technology and W.R. Grace & Co., respectively.
For a 5 billion-cu m/year gas separation unit, Toyo will provide its Coreflux technology for enhanced recovery of ethane and LPG, while Oase technology by BASF will be used for acid gas removal.
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].