ASTANA, Kazakhstan, May 17. KazMunayGas (KMG, Kazakhstan's national oil and gas company), Chinese Sinopec Overseas Investment Holding Limited (Sinopec), and Russian SIBUR Holding have discussed the implementation of the project for the construction of a polyethylene production plant with a capacity of 1.25 million tons in the Atyrau region of Kazakhstan, Trend reports.
The discussion took place during the meeting of the acting Chairman of the Board of KMG, Askhat Khasenov, with the President of Sinopec, Zhou Wenji, and the Executive Director for Design, Capital Investments, and Investment Projects of the Russian company, Boris Lim.
"The project is important for the economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan since its construction will allow for the development of deep processing of hydrocarbon raw materials. Some progress has been made, but there is still a lot of intensive work ahead to move to the construction phase and, subsequently, to launch the plant," he said.
Meanwhile, in April 2024, a tripartite protocol was signed, officially completing Sinopec's entry into the project. The structure of project participants is as follows: KazMunayGas – 40 percent; Sinopec – 30 percent; Sibur – 30 percent.
The cost of the joint project of three large companies will be about $7.7 billion, and the plant’s capacity will be 1.25 million tons per year, which is 1 percent of all global capacity.
To supply the "Polyethylene" project with raw materials (ethane), a gas separation complex will be built at the Tengiz field. The gas separation complex's capacity is 9.1 billion cubic meters of dry gas processing per year, of which it is expected to produce 1.6 million tons of ethane. Ethane will be sent through the main pipeline from Tengiz to the Karabatan site, where the polyethylene production plant will operate.
The enterprise plans to produce about 22 grades of polyethylene using American-licensed technologies from Chevron Phillips and Univation, of which 40 percent will be premium class.
Construction of the plant is planned to be completed by 2029. More than 8,000 jobs will be created during the construction period, and about 850 jobs will be created during the operation period.