Project Profile

Value: US$12.7bn
Location: Svobodnensky District, Amur Region, Russia
Area: unknown
Capacity: 49 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas a year
Production: 49bcm of processed gas, 3.4 million tonne (mt) of ethane, 2mt of liquefied petroleum gas and 60mcm of helium
Start-up Year: 2018/2019

Amur Gas Processing Plant a Gazprom project located in the Svobodnensky District of the Amur Region. The plant will have a processing capacity of 49 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas a year. Gazprom Pererabotka Blagoveshchensk, part of the Gazprom Group, and NIPIgazpererabotka (NIPIGAZ), part of the SIBUR Group, have signed an agreement to design, coordinate equipment and material supplies, and manage construction of the plant (GPP). The project is estimated to cost US$12.7bn and construction commenced in October 2015. The plant is expected to employ 15,000 people during construction phase and another 3,000 upon completion. The project includes a helium production block with an annual capacity of 60 million cubic metres (mcm). The plant will extract ethane, propane, butane, pentane-hexane fraction and helium from natural gas and process it for shipment to China. It will produce 49bcm of processed gas, 3.4 million tonne (mt) of ethane, 2mt of liquefied petroleum gas and 60mcm of helium. Ethane produced at the plant will be transferred to SIBUR gas chemical facility to be used for producing polyethene. A state-of-the-art training centre will also be opened as part of the project to prepare staff for the management of the processing facility and helium complex.

Feed gas to the plant will be supplied from the Yakutia and Irkutsk gas production centres through the Power of Siberia gas pipeline. Process trains of the gas processing plant will be commissioned in phases in accordance with the development of the production centres in the Yakutia and the Irkutsk Region. The Yakutia and Irkutsk gas production centres will source gas from the Chayandinskoye and Kovyktinskoye fields, respectively. The Chayandinskoye field has gas reserves of 1.2tcm and the Kovyktinskoye field has 1.5tcm of gas reserves. These production centres are being developed as part of the state-run the Eastern Gas Programme. The Power of Siberia gas pipeline is designed to supply natural gas from the Irkutsk and Yakutia gas production centres to the Russian Far East and China. Traversing 4,000km, the pipeline will cover the Irkutsk Region, the Republic of Yakutia and the Amur Region. The 61bcm pipeline is currently under construction. The plant’s first process train is scheduled to be commissioned in 2018, according to Gazprom.


Operators:

Gazprom Pererabotka Blagoveshchensk (part of the Gazprom Group): Operator

NIPIgazpererabotka (NIPIGAZ, part of the SIBUR Group)


Contractors:

Linde Engineering: Licenser for cryogenic gas separation technology for the construction of the gas processing plant.

Schneider Electric and Invensys: Provision of technology solutions for the training centre under construction that will prepare staff for the management of the processing facility and helium complex.

NIPIGAZ: Contract for documentation, supplying equipment and materials to performing construction and installation of the plant.

Peton (Ufa LLC SRDI O&G Peton): Front-end engineering design (FEED) development, training and project documentation focusing on the design the process units for cryogenic treatment of gas and liquefaction of helium, main off-site facilities and piping and instrumentation diagrams.

JSC Cryogenmash: Contract to provide front-end engineering and design for units at the Amur gas processing plant, which include units for ethane and NGL recovery, nitrogen removal, fine helium purification, and helium liquefaction (September 2014).