Technology company The Linde Group has received an engineering contract for the licensing and front end engineering design (FEED) of one of the world's largest ethylene plants in Tobolsk, Western Siberia. The contract was awarded by Russia's largest petrochemical company, Sibur. The two companies signed an agreement today in St. Petersburg.

The ethylene plant is to be built at the petrochemical complex "ZapSibNeftekhim" in Tobolsk, which is being planned by the company ZapsibNeftekhim, a subsidiary of Sibur.

Once finished, the new plant will produce around 1.5 million tons per annum (tpa) of ethylene, 500,000 tpa of propene and 100,000 tpa of butadiene from the feedstocks ethane, propane and n-butane. The products produced by the plant are important building blocks for the plastics manufacturing industry.

Linde is currently constructing a polypropylene plant for Sibur at its Tobolsk site. The unit has an annual capacity of 500,000 tons and is set to go on stream next year. This project is currently one of the key investments in Russia's petrochemical industry.