Russia’s state-controlled oil company Rosneft (Moscow; www.rosneft.com) is progressing plans to build a naphtha steam cracker and a butadiene and benzene extraction unit in Primorsky in Russia’s Far East region. Vostochnaya Neftechimicheskaya (VNHK), a Rosneft subsidiary, has awarded a contract for the license and basic engineering work on the project to engineering company Lummus Technology, a subsidiary of a CB&I (The Hague / The Netherlands; www.cbi.com).

CB&I said the steam cracker will be the world’s largest, designed to produce more than 1.4m t/y of ethylene and more than 600,000 t/y of propylene, using Lummus´ SRT-VII heater technology. The butadiene unit is designed to produce 230,000 t/y of benzene and approximately 200,000 t/y of butadiene, based on Lummus/BASF butadiene extraction technology.

Rosneft established VNHK earlier this year to implement the project in the Primorsky region near the Pervostroiteley settlement of Nakhodka. VNHK will produce a range of petrochemicals, including polymers, CB&I said. As part of the project, a specialised sea terminal is planned near Vostochny port for shipment of the finished products. Further details of the cracker and downstream projects were not disclosed.

The project is part of plans by the Russian government to develop six locations for cracker-based petrochemicals clusters over the next 10 years.