VLADIVOSTOK, September 4. /TASS/. Gazprom and the Ministry of the Development of the Russian Far East signed an agreement on constructing Amur gas processing plant with a design capacity of up to 49 bln cubic meters per year at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.
"This is a grand, large-scale project for our country. The amount of investment is about 800 bln rubles ($11.97 bln)," the Minister for Development of the Russian Far East Alexander Galushka said.
Gazprom’s affiliate Gazprom Pererabotka is constructing the Amur GPP in Amur Region. The GPP and the related helium plant will produce up to 48 bln cubic meters of marketed natural gas, 3.4 mln tonnes of ethane, 2 mln tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas, and 60 mln cubic meters of helium. The first stage of GPP is scheduled for commissioning in 2019.
The Amur Gas Processing Plant is part of the project on Russian natural gas supplies to China and it may become the main supplier of ethane to the Amur gas chemical facility in the city of Belogorsk.
Russia’s gas processing and petrochemicals company Sibur is managing the Amur Gas Processing Plant project. When answering the question what the configuration of the plant will look like in case Sibur decides not to construct the Amur Gas Chemical Facility, Afanasyev said in this case ethane will be exported to China as part of natural gas. "In the first two years the ethane fraction will be delivered to the pipeline to be further supplied to China. The Gas Chemical Facility is planned to be operated starting from the 3rd year of the Gas Processing Plant operation. In case Sibur decides not to construct the Gas Chemical Facility this gas will be delivered to China as part of natural gas," he said.
Sibur plans to reach an agreement with Gazprom on the volumes of ethane supplies to the Amur Gas Chemical Facility by the end of 2015.
In late July, Gazprom Pererabotka Blagoveshchensk (part of Gazprom Group) and Nipigaz (part of Sibur Group) agreed to form a partnership on design, procurement and construction management for the Amur Gas Processing Plant. "The Amur Gas Processing Plant will become Russia’s largest natural gas processing facility with a design capacity reaching 49 bln cubic meters per annum and will also include the world’s largest helium production," the report said. The plan is to start pre-developing the construction site this year. Phased commissioning of the plant’s production lines will be synchronized with the development of gas production capacities in Yakutia and the Irkutsk Region, the report said.
Earlier Russia's Far East Development Minister Alexander Galushka said Gazprom and Sibur had confirmed their participation in establishment of an Advance Development Territory (ADT) in the Amur Region.
On May 21, 2014 Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation signed a 30-year contract on Russia's pipeline gas supplies to China in the amount of 38 billion cubic meters of gas per year. Gazprom will construct the Amur Gas Processing Plant in the Amur Region to extract valuable components (helium and ethane, for instance) from natural gas. The plan is to launch gas production from the Chayandinskoye field in late 2018. By this time, the construction will be completed at the top-priority section of the Power of Siberia GTS from the Chayandinskoye field to Blagoveshchensk (2,200 kilometers) as well as at the primary gas processing facilities. The Power of Siberia will cross 3 Russian constituent entities - the Irkutsk Region, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and the Amur Region - and in future will be connected to the Sakhalin - Khabarovsk - Vladivostok GTS.