Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, July 9
By Huseyn Hasanov - Trend:
Turkmenistan is establishing a large chemical cluster in the Caspian region, the "Turkmengaz" State Concern said in a statement referring to the speech of Chairman of the Concern Myrat Archaev at the energy forum.
The plant for the processing of natural gas and the production of urea is being prepared to be put into operation in the Turkmen city of Garabogaz today. The project is implemented by the consortium consisting of Mitsubishi Corporation (Japan) and Gap Inşaat Company (Turkey).
The enterprise has been designed to produce 1,155 million tons of urea per year. The project uses technologies of Danish Haldor Topsoe AS, American UOP, Italian Saipem and Dutch Uhde Fertilizer companies. With the commissioning of the enterprise, the annual volume of nitrogen fertilizers produced in Turkmenistan will exceed 2 million tons. About a third of these products will be supplied to the domestic market, the rest will be exported.
It will be the largest enterprise of this kind in the country. The contract is valued at approximately $1.3 billion. Currently, the reconstruction of the berth in Garabogaz is underway, where from the products will be exported by sea vessels.
Archaev drew attention to the fact that the construction of a gas chemical complex in the village of Kiyanly on the Caspian coast has entered the final stage. The commissioning tests of process plants in gas separation, polyethylene and polypropylene production sections, as well as auxiliary technical systems have been carried out here.
The commissioning work on one of the main production sites – for cracking of ethane is nearing completion, and the processing of gas and the production of ethylene have been started. This project worth more than $ 3.4 billion is implemented by the Turkmengas State Concern together with LG Corporation and Hyundai Motor Company (Republic of Korea) and TOYO Engineering Corporation (Japan).
The commissioning of the enterprise will allow for processing 5 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually and thereby for producing 381,000 tons of high-density polyethylene, 81,000 tons of polypropylene and other valuable products, as well as for obtaining up to 4.5 billion cubic meters of commercial gas.
The high prospects of this project are confirmed by the fact that the largest credit and financial institutions of Japan, Germany, France, the Republic of Korea, China, Italy, Austria and Switzerland are involved in its financing.
It is also planned to build in the same area another gas chemical complex for the production of polypropylene, linear polyethylene of low density, polyvinyl chloride, as well as caustic soda, hydrochloric acid, liquid chlorine, Archaev said in his report.
This major investment project is planned to be implemented together with foreign partners. Currently, the proposals received from the participants of the international tender including well-known world companies from Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, are being analyzed.
In addition, a project is being developed for the construction of a methyldiethanolamine (MDEA) plant in Kiyanly through the processing of 4,000 tons of ethylene gas and 2,000 tons of methanol per year. The intermediate products of the two above-mentioned gas chemical complexes will be used as raw materials at that plant.