Rosneft eyes venture with petrochemical maker

June 25, 2013
Rosneft and the holding company SANORS have signed a heads of agreement to form a joint venture that would integrate their gas processing and petrochemical properties in the Orenburg and Samara regions of Russia.

Rosneft and the holding company SANORS have signed a heads of agreement to form a joint venture that would integrate their gas processing and petrochemical properties in the Orenburg and Samara regions of Russia.

Rosneft would hold no less than 50% of the venture, and SANORS would hold no more than 50%.

Rosneft owns two gas processing plants in the Samara region, Neftegorsky and Otradnensky, with combined capacity of 1.9 billion cu m/year of natural gas. Rosneft plans to modernize the plants, which operate below capacity.

SANORS, based in Novokuibyshevsk, Samara Oblast, was formed in April 2011 through the consolidation of three chemical companies in the region: Novokuibyshevskaya Petrochemical Co. (NPC), SamaraOrgSintez (SOS), and Neftekhimia.

The companies plants, built in the 1950s and 1960s, are to be upgraded.

At the SOS facility, which produced phenol and acetone at the time of the merger, plans call for installation of a propylene concentration unit to produce commercial propane, upgrade of the phenol production unit and installation of a commercial alpha-methylstyrene separation unit, and upgrade and restoration of phenol and acetone production facilities to improve efficiency.

The Neftekhimia plant produced synthetic ethanol when merged with the other enterprises. It is to be overhauled with reconstruction of an auxiliary synthetic ethanol production hydration system and upgrade of the hydrocarbon pyrolysis unit and ethylene, propylene, and butylene-divinyl production facilities.

The NPC plant also is to be modernized and equipped with new production facilities. A central gas fractionation unit out of service since August 2010 is to be refurbished and restarted. And an isoprene production facility out of service since November 2008 is to be upgraded to allow production of tertiary amyl methyl ether and processing of benzene-containing fractions.

In a statement, Rosneft said the agreement envisions “deep integration of Rosneft’s oil and gas production and refining facilities with SANORS’s existing and greenfield petrochemical-producing units.”