The site, which has been upgraded and expanded at a total investment of more than Rb8 billion ($260.4 million), will now produce 220,000 mt/year of ethyl-benzene. The old unit, which had capacity to produce 120,000 mt/year, will soon be decommissioned.
The reconstructed styrene unit will boost SM production at the site by 100,000 mt/year to 135,000 mt/year. This will make the company net long by about 85,000 mt/year of styrene.
It plans to export these styrene volumes to Europe and Asia via Vienna-based company Citgo, which it purchased in 2009, the company said recently.
The new expandable polystyrene unit with a capacity of 50,000 mt/year was built using technology from Austria's Sunpor.
This is the first time that EPS has been produced in Russia and the intention is that it will substitute imported EPS from Europe and Asia.
The EPS unit will produce energy-efficient construction and insulation materials, "retained form-work and packaging for household appliances and foodstuffs," the company said in the statement.
"The EPS is targeted for Russia based on increased consumption per capita. There is a significant amount of EPS coming in from Europe and Asia. What we plan is import substitution. We have competitively priced EPS," Sibur president Dmitry Konov said recently.
Sibur's Alphaphor branded EPS, produced under European license, will meet "stringent European standards for fire safety, grain composition, density and physical-mechanical characteristics," the company said in the statement.
