The Russian Direct Investment Fund, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund; Sabic; and the Russian private equity group, ESN Group, have agreed to design, build, and operate a methanol plant in the Amur Region of Russia’s Far East. The announcement was made today in Riyadh in the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud of Saudi Arabia.
The plant’s installed capacity is expected to be up to 2 million metric tons/year (MMt/y) of methanol. In July 2019, the methanol project was moved to the advanced special economic zone (ASEZ) and qualifies for government incentives.
Yousef al-Benyan, Sabic CEO, said, “This is an important milestone in our global growth strategy. Russia is important to our global expansion plans, which have been formulated around competitive feedstock and our capacity to innovate and plan strategically. We plan to maintain our strategic partnership with the Russian market by continuing to focus on meeting customer needs, increasing our key customer base, and growing our commercial operation, in addition to enhancing our presence in the Russian market and maintain our leading position as a key methanol supplier.”
“Today [RDIF] had reached an agreement with Sabic and ESN Group and will build a modern methanol plant in the Far East. This plant will boost local tax revenues and help create additional jobs,” said Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of RDIF. On his part, the chairman of ESN Group, Grigory Berezkin, said that the partnership with RDIF and Sabic propels this project to an entirely new level. “Sabic is [a] global leader in the petrochemical industry. RDIF is a sovereign fund with unique portfolio and unparalleled experience in execution of major investment projects in various industries. Due to sizable Gazprom investments in development of gas infrastructure and simultaneous introduction of systematic stimulating measures for attraction of investments by the Russian government, there is a tremendous opportunity for implementation of world-class investment projects in the Russian Far East.”
By Natasha Alperowicz
Source: Chemical Week
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