Kazakhstan to appoint new investor for Atyrau polymer project

24 March 2011 11:16  [Source: ICIS news]

MOSCOW (ICIS)--Kazakhstan's deputy oil and gas minister Aset Magauov announced plans on Thursday to appoint a new foreign investor for its polymer production project at Atyrau in the west of the country.

So far, Korea's LG Chem and UAE's International Petroleum Investment Company have submitted bids and the government plans to select another foreign investor to join the project in April-May this year, Magauov said in a statement.

Kazakhstan plans to build a new petrochemical hub in Atyrau by 2013. The project was estimated to cost around $5.2bn (€3.7bn) but this has since been revised down to $4bn.

The facility will include capacity for 400,000 tonnes/year of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE), and 400,000 tonnes/year of linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE). The capacity for polypropylene (PP) has been increased from 400,000 to 500,000 tonnes/year.

Separately, in November 2009 the existing Atyrau Refinery and China's Sinopec Engineering signed an agreement to build $1.1bn aromatics production facilities at the site by 2013. The new units will have capacities of 496,000 tonnes/year of paraxylene (PX) and 133,000 tonnes/year of benzene.

LyondellBasell had committed to being a partner in the project, which has been hit by a number of delays, but later withdrew.

($1 = €0.71)

By: Sergei Blagov
+44 20 8652 3214

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