Russia’s largest petrochemicals company, Sibur, has announced further details of its plans to invest in a new plant aimed at supplying energy to China.
The plant, named the Amur complex, will be built in Eastern Siberia with a budget of “around $6bn or $7bn”, according to Dmitry Konov, chairman of Sibur’s management board in an interview with the Financial Times.
“The Russian petrochemical industry is moving east and Russian energy is moving east,” Konov added. “It is moving close to the Chinese border. This is where the energy goes and we follow it.”
The project is due to begin construction in 2020, coming on stream in 2024. Current plans for the plant’s output stand at 1.5m tonnes of polyethylene a year. Along with a nearby gas processing plant operated by state-run Gazprom, the Amur complex will be fuelled by the 3,000km ‘Power of Siberia’ gas pipeline currently under construction.