Japanese conglomerate Marubeni has agreed to participate in two separate methanol projects in Russia. In the first, the Tokyo-headquartered group is partnering the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Baltic Gas Chemical Company (BGCC) and Invasta Capital to build a 1.7 million t/y plant in Russia’s Ust-Luga port on the Baltic Sea. Plans also include the construction of a sea export terminal.

“Russia has large reserves of natural resources which creates a sustainable competitive advantage in terms of raw materials. However, if compared to other oil and gas exporting countries, we produce substantially less chemical products, including methanol,” said Kirill Dmitriev, RDIF’s CEO.

Under the terms of the memorandum, Marubeni will assist the project’s investors in obtaining a loan from Japanese financial institutions. BGCC, which will operate the plant, and Marubeni have already agreed the main terms and conditions for methanol offtake.

The second plant is part of a project between Marubeni, RDIF and AEON Infrastructure Corp., a large private international investment and industrial group. The organizations have signed a cooperation agreement to develop the methanol plant and create a chemical cluster in Volgograd.

The methanol plant will have a capacity of 600,000-1 million t/y and initial access to guaranteed gas supplies of 1 billion m³ per year, with the potential for that to rise 2-2.5 times. RDIF said the facility has favorable logistics for transporting finished products, including exporting to markets in Western Europe and Turkey.

Roman Trocenko, chairman of AEON Infrastructure, said the pilot project brings a wide range of opportunities for implementing a number of new projects to develop Russia’s industrial and transportation sectors involving Japanese capital and advanced technologies.

No further details were given with regard to the projects’ timescales or investment costs.