First propylene unit using UOP Oleflex technology reaches project capacity in Russia

UOP Llc, a Honeywell company, has announced that UOP C3 Oleflex process technology started up and has been successfully operating in Russia, producing high-quality propylene to help meet the global supply shortage of the valuable plastics building block.
 
Russia’s OOO Tobolsk-Polymer facility (a subsidiary of Sibur Holding), which became the largest Oleflex production unit in the world, is meeting design capacity of 5,10,000 metric tonnes annually (MTA) of propylene at its facility in Western Siberia.
 
“Petrochemical makers are installing additional propylene capacity to meet growing demand and to make up for the shortage of propylene production from traditional refining and petrochemical sources. Oleflex has been a leading technology for converting propane to propylene for more than 20 years, and the start-up of the first Oleflex unit in Russia demonstrates both the need for more propylene capacity in the country, as well as the value of the technology,” said Pete Piotrowski, senior vice president and general manager of UOP’s Process Technology and Equipment business unit.
 
Global propylene demand is growing at about 4 to 5 percent per year. Russia is expected to be a large contributor to propylene production due to the country’s diversification into the petrochemicals sector, which has seen substantial investment in the polyethylene and polypropylene industries, according to GlobalData.
 
“We licensed UOP Oleflex technology because it perfectly fits our feedstock profile, it is in line with our strategic goals to invest in propylene derivatives, particularly in polypropylene, and because Oleflex is more competitive than most other technologies available on the market,” said Sergey Komyshan, SIBUR’s managing director - head of Basic Polymers Division.
 
The C3 Oleflex process uses catalytic dehydrogenation to convert propane to propylene. Compared with competing processes, UOP’s C3 Oleflex technology provides the lowest cash cost of production, the highest return on investment and the smallest environmental footprint. This superior performance is characterised by low capital cost, high propylene yields, low energy and water consumption, and use of a fully recyclable platinum alumina-based catalyst system. In addition to the C3 Oleflex process, UOP also licenses its C4 Oleflex technology, a butane dehydrogenation process to convert isobutane to isobutylene.