Russia launches Amur gas processing plant
The first train of the Amur gas processing plant (GPP) in the Russian Far East has started operations, its operator Gazprom reported on June 9, hailing the project as one of the largest and most high-tech of its kind in the world.
The five-train plant will process gas flowing from fields in east Siberia to China via the Power of Siberia pipeline. Gazprom expects it to reach its full 42bn m3/year capacity by 2025. In addition to treated gas, the GPP will also produce up to 2.4mn metric tons/year of ethane, 1.5mn mt/yr of LPG and 200,000 mt/yr of petane-hexane fraction. The ethane and LPG will be delivered to a nearby chemicals complex that Sibur is building.
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The GPP will also produce 60mn m3/yr of helium, a high-value product in high-tech industries, Gazprom said. The helium will be delivered to a hub in Vladivostok, for onward supply to international markets. Gazprom recently said that the plant's helium output had been fully contracted by buyers.
The Amur GPP was formally commissioned by Russian president Vladimir Putin.
"This is a capital-intensive and knowledge intensive project," Putin said at the ceremony via video link. "The cost of the entire project is over 1 trillion rubles ($13.8bn). I am sure that the last stage will be commissioned in 2024-2025 as planned."
"The Amur GPP is one of the most cutting-edge and high-tech production enterprises in the world," Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller added. "Its construction schedule was extremely tight. Less than six years passed between the first pile and the start-up. An unprecedented amount of work was completed in that period."
The 38bm m3/yr Power of Siberia pipeline began flowing gas to China at the end of 2019.