According to Interfax News Agency article published on January 25, 2023, Silleno LLP, a joint venture between Russia's SIBUR Holding and Kazakhstan's national oil and gas company KazMunayGas, will soon start Front End Engineering Design for a polyethylene plant in Kazakhstan, Sergei Komyshan, SIBUR's executive director of marketing and sales, told Interfax.
"FEED usually takes a year or so," he said.
Commenting on SIBUR's plans in Russia in 2023, Komyshan said the company has considered various scenarios for oil production and refining in Russia and was preparing for any options in terms of feedstock supply.
"We have had to significantly expand the scope of variability for which we are preparing the company, and one of the factors is the level of production and oil refining in Russia. We looked at a fairly wide range of scenarios for both a small increase and a decrease in oil production and refining, and we believe that we can prepare for this. This will require some flexibility from the company, but we have begun to make preparations and do not expect that the drop will be significant," he said.
National Wealth Fund Samruk-Kazyna, KazMunayGas, SIBUR and the stakeholders of operating companies in November 2022 signed heads of agreement to create joint ventures based on Kazakhstan Petrochemical Industries Inc. LLP and Silleno LLP. They agreed on terms and conditions for their partnership in the joint ventures based in the National Industrial Petrochemical Technical Park, a special economic zone in Atyrau. This includes investment in the construction of the polyethylene plant with annual production capacity of 1.25 million tonnes, as well as sales of polypropylene to be produced by the plant with design capacity of 500,000 tonnes a year.
SIBUR's stake in each joint venture is 40%. Kazakhstan Petrochemical Industries Inc. LLP started to produce polypropylene in early November 2022.
