[Premium] Sanctions Drive Russian Tech Sector
Launching the above-ground work on the Amur Gas Processing Plant (AGPP) August 4 in the far east of Russia, gas giant Gazprom made much of its achievement which relied heavily on domestic technology.
As well as limiting Russia's access to some technology, the catastrophic decline in the rouble in the wake of the 2014 sanctions on Russia has made domestic suppliers more competitive and also forced them to improve their technological offer. Gazprom's giant Power of Siberia pipeline, which AGPP will feed gas into, is to carry 38bn m³/yr to China, using only Russian pipelines.
"In less than two years, we have successfully completed the initial construction of the AGPP, the largest and most advanced gas processing plant in the country. Today, we launched the next crucial and essential stage. We laid the first foundation and will soon start installing the facilities that will be vital to the future plant,” said Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller, in the presence of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
AGPP will be take gas from the Chayandinskoye field in Yakutia and the Kovykta gas field in Irkutsk, both in eastern Siberia. It will extract ethane and helium for the purposes of the petrochemical and other industries, and export the purified methane to China.
AGPP will have six production lines, each of which will be an independent gas processing facility with annual capacity of 7bn m³. Two process lines will come online at the first start-up complex, while the other four will be consecutively put in operation later, bringing it to 42bn m³/year. This will make it the largest such plant in Russia and one of the biggest in the world. The plant will also include the world's largest helium production facility, with up to 60mn m³/yr. For this it will need foreign help, including partnership with Germany's Linde.
Gazprom says the Power of Siberia pipeline passes through swampy, mountainous, seismically active, permafrost and rocky areas with extreme environmental conditions. The absolute lowest air temperatures range from minus 62 degrees Celsius in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) to minus 41 degrees Celsius in the Amur Region.
The manufacturer of some of the linepipe, Russian TMK, told NGW August 4 that in 2014-2017 it developed several products as a part of the national import substitution programme. "For instance last year TMK shipped tubular products for the construction of production wells at the Russian Arctic, and hydrogen sulphide-resistant tubing for use at the Astrakhans oil and gas condensate field.
"We have co-operated with Gazprom in a completely new way, with TMK developing for this key partner 'things of the future'," the company said: TMK is to develop, manufacture and supply tubular products and to offer maintenance, as well as high-strength speciality pipes with premium threaded connections of carbon, alloy and special steels to be used in adverse climate conditions and hostile environments. The products will be designed and supplied in accordance with specific technical requirements Gazprom has for its current and newly developed projects, including the Astrakhan, Urengoi, Chayanda, and Kovykta fields, and offshore projects."
"In 2015 Gazprom provided around $1bn to develop and deliver these 'things of the future', up until 2022. This collaboration was an absolute success, so the Russian government has forced state companies to use the same form of co-operation while working on new import-substituting equipment," TMK said.
"We also have a strong partnership with Rosneft. TMK and Rosneft signed a research and development co-operation programme and a partnership memorandum for implementing pipe import substitution for offshore projects," TMK said. This year TMK also signed a long-term tubular goods supply contract that lasts until 2022. Over the contract period, TMK will supply over half the tubular goods supplied to Rosneft, out of the total volume of the production casing and tubing.
William Powell