UOP LLC (Des Plaines, Ill; www.uop.com), a Honeywell company, says 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, which became the largest Oleflex production unit in the world, is meeting design capacity of 510,000 metric tons annually (m.t./yr) of propylene at its facility in Western Siberia.
Global propylene demand is growing at about 4 to 5%/yr. 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.
The C3 Oleflex process uses catalytic dehydrogenation to convert propane to propylene. Compared with competing processes, UOP’s C3 Oleflex technology is said to provide the lowest cash cost of production, the highest return on investment and the smallest environmental footprint. This superior performance is characterized by low capital cost, high propylene yields, low energy and water consumption, and use of a fully recyclable platinum alumina-based catalyst system, the company says. In addition to the C3 Oleflex process, UOP also licenses its C4 Oleflex technology, a butane dehydrogenation process to convert isobutane to isobutylene.
OOO Tobolsk-Polymer, a subsidiary of SIBUR Holding JSC, produces a wide range of high-quality polypropylene used to manufacture goods in Russia and abroad. The facility is located in Tobolsk in the Tymen region of Russia.