OREANDA-NEWS. December 24, 2012. In the frame of the press events on "Results of the year and the outlook for 2013" the JSC TATNEFT organized a familiarization tour of the petrochemical and refining complexes of the Company for federal, regional, national and local media.

Presentation of industrial and social facilities: products and new up-to-date equipment of the JSC "Nizhnekamskshina" and LLC "Nizhnekamsk SSC Tire Factory", as wellas catering facilities and the clinic of the "Chulpan-Medicine" LPC (Medical Prevention Centre) was arranged for the media at "Tatneft-Neftekhim" Management Company.

The journalists got familiarized with the complex performance indicators and plans for the next year. The year 2012 is a landmark year for the enterprises of the JSC TATNEFT's petrochemical complex. For the first time in the history of the tire factories in Nizhnekamsk they will manufacture more than 13 million tires. "Nizhnekamsktekhuglerod" produced 115 thousand tons of carbon black. The plans for 2013 are even more ambitious: they envisage production in the amount of 14 million 900 thousand tires.

Detailed information was presented to the press-tour participants about the changes that had occurred in 2012 at the JSC "Nizhnekamskshina". The factory is the basis of the JSC TATNEFT's tire production complex. As part of the project to increase the production of KAMA EURO and Viatti tires in 2012 the company commissioned two robotic assembly MAXX series machines produced by VMI; vulcanization equipment of Herbert and NRM companies was purchased. Production capacity of the marketable KAMA EURO tires was brought up to 4.5 million pieces per year. The high quality of the complex products is demonstrated by the fact that the JSC "Nizhnekamskshina" has become the first provider in the Russian market receiving the status of tires "homologator" of the automobile factories Fiat, Volkswagen and Skoda. Cooperation was started with automakers Renault Nissan and the Ford-Sollers joint venture.

The media representatives were also acquainted with the assembly and vulcanizing process and the quality control system of products output at the Nizhnekamsk SSC Tire Factory. The factory for production of new generation tires with a design capacity of 1.2 million tires per year is the largest investment project of the TATNEFT's tire complex. The Company invested about 18 billion rubles in the construction. The enterprise manufactures products for trucks of all types, buses and semi-trailer equipment. Quality-wise SSC tires are on the level with the similar recognized world brands and are suitable for application in all road conditions: from highways and freeways to off-roads and dirt roads. High quality of the Nizhnekamsk products has also been confirmed by the fact that the SSC tires are manufactured under the off-take system (tire production to the order for other brands).

Under the press tour program they inspected a number of facilities of the "TANECO" Oil Refining Complex. The first phase of the Oil Refining and Petrochemical Complex was put into commercial operation in December 2011. The whole production chain of Phase 1A1 was technologically completed In August of 2012 with the start of granulated sulfur production. Currently "TANECO" processes 7 million tons of oil per year with the conversion depth about 73 percent.

The media representatives visited the "TANECO" key production facilities including CDU/VDU-7, visbreaking unit and production of elemental sulfur, loading racks, flare system, treatment facilities, etc.

The journalists visited the construction site of the combined hydrocracking Installation of the Oil Refining and Petrochemical Complex, which will allow increasing production of light products yielding high-quality jet fuel, Euro 5 diesel fuel and base oils of groups II and III through processing the vacuum gas oil coming from the CDU/VDU (up to 2.9 million tons per year).

The сcomplexity of the hydrocracking process is that the equipment of the reactor block operates at a pressure of up to 190 atmospheres and a temperature of 300-440 degrees and high-pressure lines are used for transportation of intermediary products between the high pressure blocks of the hydrocracking section and the base oils section. The uniqueness of the pipe is that it is manufactured of corrosion-resistant high-temperature steel with a wall thickness up to 88 mm. The pipe per meter weight can be as high as 1,130 kg.

Deliveries also included parts complete with molded products for pipelines. They include pipe bends, flanges, gaskets, blind flanges and spectacle blinds, ring handles, nipples (a total of over 5 thousand pieces) and shut-off valves. For reference: a bend for such a pipe weighs 1,862.00 kg. The time of manufacturing some items takes up to 210 days. To date, all pipe deliveries have been completed. Deliveries of the pipe and pipeline components were made during the year (the first deliveries made in December 2011 with the deliveries completion in December 2012). More than 40 works from small to very large ones all over Europe (Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Belgium) were involved in the production process.

Among the social facilities of the tire manufacturing and refining complexes the journalists got familiarized with a successfully implemented project to reorganize the public catering system of the petrochemical complex enterprises, as well as with the operation of "Chulpan-Medicine" Medical Prevention Centre opened in November 2009 with the support of TATNEFT, and also the "Shifaly" health improving center of the "TANECO" Complex.