Russia’s only polyalphaolefins complex now can also produce polyalkylene glycols and complex esters, after completing an expansion that included a revamp of an existing finished lubricant factory, the company said in a recent news release.
Taif JSC did not specify the capacities for PAGs or complex esters but said the facility can make a combined 15,000 metric tons per year of those materials and finished lubricants.
The company underwent a string of ownership changes in recent years and in 2019 started to operate under Taif Lubricants, part of the Kazan-based investment holding and oil company Tatar-American Investment and Finance Co., known as Taif JSC. Taif Lubricants operations are based in Nizhnekamsk, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia.
“The PAOs complex was upgraded with new technological lines, filtration systems, and automatic control in the facility for production of finished lubricants and PAGs,” Ruzil Vafin, the plant’s director, said in a recent news release.
Vafin said that the old PAO plant, constructed in 2003, was tweaked and redesigned by specialists of the engineering and technical design company Nis-Engineering, subsidiary of Serbian oil company NIS, in which Russian oil company Gazprom owns a majority stake.
The finished lubricant plant was expanded through installation of additional blending reactors. It now has seven reactors and a more robust small canister filling line designed by the Russian company Mekhatronika.
“The enterprise achieved its full capacity, and the expanded production volumes and terms of its realization depend on the pace of the increasing market sales of our production,” the company said.
The Nizhnekamsk lubricant complex has a full-cycle lube production. Finished lubricants are produced with the in-house PAOs and Group II and Group III base oils supplied from nearby oil major Tatneft’s Taneco refinery. The refinery has capacity to produce 90,000 t/y of Group II and 100,000 t/y of Group III base oils.
Taif’s PAO plant has capacity of 9,000 t/y and makes several grades of fluids, spanning from low to high viscosity. Finished lubricants produced at the site include automotive engine oils and transmission fluids, industrial lubricants and water-soluble metalworking fluids, as well as greases.
The PAO complex in Nizhnekamsk was built and put into operation in 2003. In the beginning, the enterprise was a joint venture between the chemical producer Nizhnekamskneftekhim and Tatneft.