Project Profile

Location: Ust-Kut, Irkutsk region, Eastern Siberia
Value: US$5.86 billion
Location: Irkutsk region, Eastern Siberia
Gas processing capacity: 7.9 bcm per year
Completion date: 2023

Irkutsk Oil Co. (INK) is currently working on a 361 billion ruble (US$5.86 billion) investment programme to monetise gas resources at its fields in Eastern Siberia. Like other independent operators in the region, INK has found it difficult to exploit gas resources because of a lack of infrastructure and limited demand.
In November 2017, INK completed a 1.3 bcm per year gas processing plant at the Yaraktinskoye field in Irkutsk. The plant produces commercial supplies of propane, butane and gas condensate. Condensate is exported via the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline, while propane and butane volumes are pumped via a 196-km pipeline to an LPG storage and shipment unit in Ust-Kut. Supplies are then dispatched to local customers via road and rail. The cost of building all these facilities was estimated at 41 billion rubles (US$660 million).
INK intends to invest a further 320 billion rubles (US$5.2 billion) in its gas programme by 2024. Under the project’s second phase, three more gas plants will be built at the Yaraktinskoye and the nearby Markovskoye deposit by 2020, lifting overall processing capacity to 21.6 mcm per day (7.9 bcm per year).
The third phase calls for the construction of a 600,000 tpy polyethylene complex in Ust-Kut by 2023, along with an adjoining 100-MW gas-fired power plant. INK has not yet announced reaching a final investment decision (FID) on this stage, however.
Under a proposed fourth phase, the company may also launch a programme to utilise methane at the petrochemicals plant.

Operator: Irkutsk Oil Co. (INK) with 100% interest.