MOSCOW (MRC) -- Maire Tecnimont S.p.A. has announced that they have signed an Agreement of Intent with Rosneft for the implementation of a project related to the “Construction of the VGO Hydrocracking Complex” at the Ryazan Refining Company’s (RORC) production site, approximately 200 km southeast of Moscow, as per Maire Tecnimont's press release.
The agreement was signed on the occasion of the ХIV Eurasian Economic Forum in Verona, in Italy.
Vacuum Gas Oil (VGO) is produced by a vacuum distillation unit in a refinery plant. Rosneft’s subsidiary RORC is one of the largest Russian refineries by volume of refining and production output.
The project’s scope of work entails a full range of works related to the design, supply of equipment and materials, construction, start-up and commissioning, and project finance services.
The VGO hydrocracking complex will enable RORC to increase refining margins by converting heavy petroleum products into Class 5 light commercial petroleum products (gasoline, kerosene, diesel fuel). The complex includes hydrocracking units, hydrogen production units, elemental sulphur production units, and off-site facilities. All equipment has high environmental performance characteristics. The project uses modern, highly efficient technology and equipment with an automated control system to reduce the carbon footprint of the plant.
Rosneft is implementing an unprecedented program to upgrade its refineries, with more than Rb900 B (USD13 B approximately) already invested to significantly increase the production of Class 5 gasoline, diesel fuel and fully meet the needs of the domestic market.
Pierroberto Folgiero, Maire Tecnimont Group Chief Executive Officer, commented: “We are really honored to put for the first time at Rosneft’s service our technological know-how as well as our engineering and construction capabilities for this strategic initiative to unlock greater value through the transformation of natural resources, while ensuring best environmentally performing standards. This achievement with a prestigious client such as Rosneft let us further consolidate our very strong track record in the Russian Federation, a market currently showing really significant investment trends in downstream”.
As MRC reported earlier, the Indian company Nayara Energy, 49.13% of which is owned by Russia's largest state oil company - Rosneft, has recently launched a USD750 million petrochemical development program. Nayara Energy has the second largest refinery in India with a capacity of 20 million tons per year. The Indian company has already launched a refinery development program: within the first stage, it is planned to build units for the production of polypropylene (PP) with a capacity of up to 450,000 tonnes per year.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,638,370 tonnes in the first eight months of 2021, up by 10% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 989,570 tonnes in the first eight months of 2021, up by 30% year on year. Deliveries of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas shipments of injection moulding PP random copolymers decreased significantly.
Rosneft became Russia's largest publicly traded oil company in March 2013 after the USD55 billion takeover of TNK-BP, which was Russia’s third-largest oil producer at the time.
MRC