OREANDA-NEWS. November 05, 2009. The contract between LLP “Atyrau Oil Refinery” (subsidiary of JSC “Trading House “KazMunayGas”) and Chinese company Sinopec Engineering for the construction of an aromatics production complex at the Atyrau Oil Refinery on turn-key terms was signed on the 29th of October this year in Atyrau.

According to the competitive selection of technical and economic proposals of the strategic partners, the preference for the complex construction was given to the Sinopec Engineering company as the General Partner.

JSC NC “KazMunayGas” implements this project in accordance with the RK Government Regulation No. 712 of 14 May 2009 “On Approval of the Comprehensive Plan to Develop Refineries of the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2009-2015”. The plan aims at ensuring energy security of the Republic of Kazakhstan with regard to total saturation of the domestic market with the main types of petroleum products - high-grade petrol, jet fuel and diesel fuel.

The construction of the aromatic hydrocarbons production complex will allow production of benzene up to 133 thousand tons per year and paraxylene up to 496 thousand tons per year for the petrochemical industry, as well as production of petrol and diesel fuel of the Euro-4 standard.

“Flexible process flow of the planned complex provides an opportunity to vary the final product output (fuel variant or petrochemical variant) depending on the domestic market requirements for auto-petrol and petrochemical feedstocks”, - said Daniyar Tiyesov, Managing Director for Processing and Marketing of Oil (member of the Management Board) of JSC NC “KazMunayGas”. – “Thus, in case of the fuel variant, the designed capacity of the complex at full loading of crude oil distillation plants will allow increasing the production of high-octane petrol by an average of 550 thousand tons per year.”

The construction of the complex will be carried out according to the “ParamaX BTX” technology from the single licensee Axens (France) and includes a catalytic reforming unit (phase 1) and construction of the aromatics production complex (phase 2).

Investments in the project will amount to 1,040 million U.S. dollars. The construction of the aromatics production complex is planned for 2009-2013.