Hey Habr!
Continuing our series of publications, we decided that in order to understand the basics of "digital chemistry" we need to tell a little about the essence of the company's business. It is clear that we will simplify along the way so as not to turn the story into a boring lecture listing the entire periodic table (by the way, 2019 is officially the year of the periodic law, in honor of the 150th anniversary of its discovery).
Many people, when answering the question "What is petrochemistry and what products does it create?" confidently answer - fuel, gasoline and other liquid-fuel. In fact, to put it mildly, this is not entirely true. As a petrochemical company, we are primarily involved in the processing of by-products of oil and gas production and the production of synthetic materials, which constitute a significant part of the environment for each of us. There is an opinion that out of 5 objects that surround us at any given time, 4 are created thanks to petrochemistry. These are laptop cases, pens, bottles, fabrics, bumpers and tires for cars, plastic windows, packaging of your favorite chips, water pipes, food containers, medical equipment and consumables ... In general, here:
My name is Aleksey Vinnichenko, I am responsible for Advanced Analytics at SIBUR. With the help of analytical models, we adjust the optimal modes of technological processes, minimize the risks of equipment breakdowns, predict market prices for raw materials and products, and much more.
Today I will tell you what these products are and how we produce them from predominantly associated petroleum gas.
gas path
When oilmen pump oil, associated petroleum gas (APG) goes along with it, along with oil, a gas cap rises to the surface, which is usually found in the layers of the earth along with oil. During the Soviet decades, most of it was simply burned, since environmental issues were a secondary factor, and for the utilization of APG, it is necessary to build an expensive infrastructure, especially since domestic oil fields are located mainly in the harsh regions of Western Siberia. As a result, the flames of the torches were clearly visible even from space. Over time, the position of the state regarding flaring became tougher, the consumption of synthetic materials, and hence the need for raw materials for them, increased, and the view on the problem of APG flaring was revised. Even under the USSR, the country began to develop the processing of APG into useful products, but the process was really restarted in the early 2000s. As a result, now only SIBUR processes about 23 billion cubic meters of APG per year, preventing the emissions of 7 million tons of harmful substances and 70 million tons of greenhouse gases, which is equivalent to the annual emissions of vehicles in an average European country.
So, oil companies sell us associated petroleum gas. We have built an extensive pipeline network in Western Siberia that delivers gas to our gas processing plants. At these plants, gas undergoes primary processing, separating into natural (natural) gas, which goes into the Gazprom gas transmission system and then goes, for example, to your house if you use a gas stove, as well as into the so-called "broad fraction of light hydrocarbons" (NGL) is a mixture from which, subsequently, under a different combination of temperature and pressure, we obtain a whole variety of chemical products.
We collect NGL from our Siberian plants through a pipeline system and pour it into one large 1100-kilometer long pipe - from north to south of Western Siberia - that carries the product to our largest production site in Tobolsk. By the way, a very interesting city, full of history - Yermak, Mendeleev, the Decembrists, Dostoevsky, and Rasputin is also nearby. The first stone Kremlin in Siberia. Part of this story can be seen in the film "Tobol", which is released at the end of February. In the film, by the way, our employees were among the extras. But back to production in Tobolsk.
There we separate the received raw materials into separate components and fractions, process products into liquefied hydrocarbon gas (LHG). Liquefied gas in itself is a finished commercial product that can be offered to the market and buyers. Propane, butane - gas containers for summer cottages, cans for refilling lighters, environmentally friendly fuel for cars. In general, all this can be sold to the buyer. Which is part of what we do. But what happens to the rest of the raw materials, which are not used to create liquefied gas, in Tobolsk and at the company's production facilities in Tomsk, Perm, Tolyatti, Voronezh and other cities with our petrochemical plants.
Gas separation plant. column equipment
Winemaking
Polymers
LPG goes through the pyrolysis stage (or alternative chemical technologies), where we get the most important monomers for polymer production - ethylene and propylene. The layman does not encounter these substances, since they do not enter the open wide market. We process monomers into polymers, which are plastic granules. In general, the polymers themselves (polyethylene, polypropylene, PVC, PET, polystyrene and others) visually differ slightly from each other in the form of granules. Now we produce all the main types of polymers - polyethylene (the most massive polymer in the world in terms of tonnage), polypropylene PVC.
The main areas of use of polyethylene and polypropylene are housing and communal services, food packaging, building materials, the automotive industry, medicine, and even diapers.
Pyrolysis ovens
PVC is probably familiar to everyone primarily from plastic windows and pipes. As for polystyrene, you see it almost every day. It is often used to make substrates for vegetables and fruits in supermarkets, it can be used to pack takeaway food in cafes and restaurants. But we produce another version of expanded polystyrene - construction, which surpasses mineral wool and other heaters in its thermal insulation properties. And they make eco-friendly beehives from it. Remember Luzhkov? He's a fan of Styrofoam hives.
Eggs in expanded polystyrene packaging
We are now building the largest petrochemical plant in the Russian Federation in Tobolsk, , with a capacity of 2 million tons of polymers per year. If we take all the products of only this plant for a year and make plastic pipes out of it, it will be possible to replace all rusty pipes in general in the Russian Federation (more than 2 million kilometers of water supply).
25 kg bag of polypropylene granules
We sell plastics in granules - this is the most convenient form for transportation (granules can be poured both into a 25 kg bag and into big bags for several centners) and for subsequent processing at the buyer's plant. There, you just need to pour this plastic into containers and melt it under the necessary pressure and temperature, creating the desired shapes and giving the desired qualities.
handful of plastic pellets
Why under different temperatures and pressures - because several types of plastic can be made from the same polymer, differing in their physical and chemical properties. For example, the same granules can be used to make both a thin plastic bag and a durable pipe. Customers, receiving granules from us, can add additives to them, achieving the desired properties. Therefore, there are many different brands of plastic of the same kind.
We also make PET, from which Coca-Cola and PepsiCo make containers for their products.
Rubber
By the way. We also make rubber. There are two rubbers in the world - natural and synthetic. Moreover, the price and demand for synthetic is quite tightly tied to the price and demand for natural. This happened historically, since natural rubber entered the market initially. Natural rubber is harvested by farmers in individual southern countries, after which it is handed over to processing companies. Synthetic is a petrochemical product.
, the main source of natural rubber
We sell rubber to tire companies in briquettes.
Briquette rubber
Tire companies are the main consumers of rubber, we supply it to Bridgestone, Pirelli, Michelin, Continental and other manufacturers. At the same time, which today is quite rare for the Russian industry, we have unique advanced technologies. For example, on the basis of our technology, together with Indian partners, we are building a new plant in the state of Gujarat (not far from Goa).
But not tires alone - after all, many other, less well-known, but also necessary things are made of rubber. These are all kinds of casings, gaskets for cars, a lot of products for the plumbing industry, which are also in every home, shoe soles.
Voronezhsintezkauchuk
This, by the way, is the peculiar charm of petrochemistry as an industry. You can extract something and go to sell it, or you can find a way to process it and get some more value-added products.
Summarizing
No matter how it sounds, polymers and other petrochemical products have become integral elements in the life of a modern person. Partly because all this is quite new from a global point of view, there are a lot of myths and horror stories, they say, one should be careful with synthetic materials by default just because they are chemistry. By the way, in one of the following posts, colleagues will debunk some of the most popular myths about the fact that plastic in the microwave is guaranteed to undermine your health and mood, and your favorite soda in glass is always * tastier than the same soda in a plastic bottle.
*always, except blind tests
A bonus for those who read to the end is our cartoon, which describes some of the steps in creating polymers in more detail.
Source: habr.com