Russian oil major Gazprom Neft started construction last week on a project that will modernize an obsolete base oil plant at its refinery in Omsk, Western Siberia.
The $424 million project will give the site capacity to make 220,000 metric tons per year of API Group II and III oils.
The complex will produce base oils used in high performance synthetic finished lubricants used in contemporary automotive and industrial equipment, Gazprom Neft said in a Jan. 20 news release.
The move will help the company, a major Russian lubricant marketer, to use only in-house base oil for blending of its finished lubricants.
The base oil plant will feature hydro treatment and catalytic dewaxing technology licensed by ExxonMobil, while two Russian equipment makers in the gas, oil and petrochemical industry of Russia – Volgogradneftemash in Volgograd and Uralkhimmash of Ekaterinburg – will manufacture and install the equipment.
Construction is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2022, the company said.
“Raw materials for production of base oil will come from the refinery’s hydrocracking unit, expected to commence in 2021,” the company said.
“In Omsk, the new [Group II/III] base oil unit has licensed technology of ExxonMobil. The Russian companies will manufacture and install the equipment consisted of reactors and high pressure separators, storage tanks, pipes, probably the valves, basically the metal parts,” Oleg Tsvetkov, chief specialist at Topchiev Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis of the Royal Academy of Science, told Lube Report.
He added that the plant’s “compressors, pumps, valves and the automatic system for control of the technological process, probably all will be imported, according to the recommendation by the licensee.”
With production of its own high quality base oil, the company hopes to expand its G-Energy and Gazpromneft-branded lubricants.
“This will allow us to cut the cost of our finished motor oils, while improving their competitiveness,” said Anatoly Cherner, Gazprom Neft’s deputy director for logistics, processing and sales.
The refining complex in Omsk currently has a Group I plant with capacity of 260,000 t/y as well as a 110,000 t/y lubricant blending plant and 17,000 t/y process oil unit.
Three Russian plants can make Group II or III base stocks. Tatneft’s Taneco refinery in Niznekamsk has capacity to make 90,000 t/y of Group II and 100,000 t/y of Group III, while Lukoil’s Volgograd plant can produce 30,000 t/y of Group III, along with 520,000 t/y of Group I.
Slavneft, a 50/50 joint venture between Rosneft and Gazprom, operates a 100,000 t/y, Group III base oil plant in Yaroslavl.