In a recent announcement made by PJSC Lukoil it was mentioned that the company was starting the construction of a catalytic cracking complex at the Perm refinery. The project will undergo implementation under the agreement with Russia’s ministry of energy on providing an investment incentive which would be a part of the negative excise tax on refinery feedstock. 

The facility will be having a feedstock capacity of 1.8 million tonnes per year. The complex will include a catalytic cracking unit, high octane gasoline components unit, and infrastructure unit. The complex will be having a distinctive feature of the high adjustable Propylene yield. 

The complex is planned to come online by 2026. Once running, the complex will be producing high octane motor gasoline, and polymer grade Propylene which will be used as feedstock at Lukoil’s petrochemical facilities. 

The proposed investment is a part of Lukoil’s planned investment of USD 3 billion in production of petrochemicals. The production capacity of the complex will be around 800,000 tonnes per year which will help Lukoil boost the production of gasoline by 400,000 tonnes per year. 

Stavrolen which is part of Lukoil and a major producer of Polyolefins in Russia also has plans to upgrade its technical equipment and to increase the production of Polyethylene and Polypropylene. 

Lukoil is one of the leading oil companies in Russia. The major operations of the company include oil and gas exploration and production and production and sale of petroleum products. Stavrolen which is the petrochemical arm of Lukoil is one of the largest petrochemicals units in Russia.

As per ChemAnalyst, “the proposed investment by Lukoil towards increasing the company’ s capacity for gasoline and petrochemicals is aimed at capturing the growing domestic as well as global demand for gasoline and petrochemicals. Polypropylene demand is also experiencing healthy growth hence the company will be looking forwards towards increasing Polypropylene production in the future.”