Irkutsk Polymer Plant (IPP), a subsidiary of Irkutsk Oil Co. Ltd. (INK), has let a contract to McDermott International Inc. to provide basic engineering and technology licensing for a grassroots ethylene plant in Ust-Kut, in East Siberia’s Irkutsk region.
Alongside basic engineering and technology licensing, McDermott also will deliver detailed engineering and material supply of heaters, including six of its proprietary Lummus Technology Inc.’s short residence time (SRT) pyrolysis heaters for the plant that, once completed, will produce 650,000 tonnes/year of polymer-grade ethylene from ethane and propane, the service provider said.
The plant, which also will feature a low-pressure chilling train and multicomponent refrigeration, additionally will be equipped to produce high-purity hydrogen and C5 by-product, McDermott said.
Valued at $50-250 million, the contract was reflected in McDermott’s fourth-quarter 2018 backlog.
This latest contract for the project follows IPP-INK’s previous award to Toyo Engineering Corp. to provide engineering, procurement, and technical advisory services for both precommissioning and commissioning of the plant, which also will use Univation Technologies LLC’s proprietary technology for production of polyethylene (OGJ Online, Feb. 6, 2019).
The proposed project follows INK’s strategy to reduce emissions by fully utilizing ethane extracted from ethane-rich gas sourced from its regional gas processing and treatment plants at Yaraktinsky and Markovsky fields as feedstock for the ethylene-polyethylene plant.
While INK has yet to reveal a definitive startup date for the planned petrochemicals plant, the operator previously said it would be undertaking the olefins project—which will be designed to possibly expand production to as much as 1 million tpy—in 2018-22.
INK currently operates a 3.6 million-cu m/year gas processing plant in Yaraktinsky field, and during 2015-18, planned to build two more gas processing plants at Yaraktinsky with a combined capacity of 12 million cu m/year, as well as a 6 million-cu m/year gas treatment plant at Markovsky field, according to the company’s web site.
