Roman Sklyar, Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, shared plans for the production of polyethylene, Kazinform correspondent reports.

“According to the polyethylene production project with a capacity of 1.25 million tons per year, work is underway to find a potential strategic partner. For this purpose, the following criteria are defined: availability of licensed technology, providing off-take contract and the possibility of organizing financing, on the basis of which groups of companies are formed. As of today, negotiations have begun with these companies, in particular with Sabic, Chevron, etc.,” – Roman Sklyar said in response to the Deputy’s request

He also noted that since the key condition for the successful attraction of a strategic partner is providing the project with raw materials, the issue of building a gas separation plant is worked out together with Tengizchevroil LLP, with a capacity of 9.7 billion m3 (GSU) – the infrastructure necessary for extracting ethane from dry gas.

“Work has begun on the development of design and estimate documentation for the GSU, which is planned to complete by the end of the current year. In general, the task for this project is to identify a strategic partner in 2021-2022 and begin its implementation.

According to the project for the production of cyclohexane, a private investor envisaged the implementation of a project for the processing of benzene from the Atyrau refinery into cyclohexane (with a capacity of 150 thousand tons per year). However, due to the current situation in the world related to the coronavirus pandemic, the investor has suspended consideration of this project,” – the Deputy Prime Minister explained.

Today, according to him, another private investor is studying the issue of benzene processing with a change in the configuration of the project. In general, a number of measures have been taken for the successful implementation of investment projects in the petrochemical industry:

• under the Law “On Gas and Gas Supply”, prices and volumes of hydrocarbon raw materials for petrochemical industries (commercial and liquefied petroleum gas) are regulated;
• there are tax and customs preferences on the territory of the NIPT SEZ;
• the procedure for attracting foreign labor has been simplified.

 “Also, within the framework of the activities of the Council of Foreign Investors under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the issue of introducing a legislative mechanism under a special investment agreement for petrochemical projects is worked out. It is planned to provide in a special agreement for both obligations on the part of the state to the investor (investment protection, guarantees for providing raw materials and infrastructure, tax benefits, the right to direct application of international environmental and construction standards), and on the part of the investor to the state,” – Roman Sklyar concluded.