Tianjin Bohua Petrochemical to invest 26.7billion to build Polyolefins plant in Kazakshtan

China has agreed to invest around 26.7 billion Chinese yuan ($4.2 billion) to construct a petrochemical and polyolefins complex in the Aktyubinsk region of the central Asian state of Kazakhstan.

Representatives of the Chinese firm Tianjin Bohua Petrochemical, part of the Tianjin Bohai Chemical group, signed a cooperation agreement for the project with the Kazakh regional governor Berdybek Saparbayev in Beijing recently.

The project is expected to create 3,000 new jobs and petrochemical outputs will be aimed primarily at markets in China and Kazakhstan as well for supplying to neighboring countries.

The complex is due to be constructed in two separate phases. In the first stage, a plant capable of producing methanol from natural gas feedstock will take shape. A further phase will see the building of an ethylene plant with 300,000 metric tons per year capacity, as well as two 300,000 metric tons per year units for polyethylene and polypropylene, respectively.

The Kazakh scheme should be completed by 2021, according to Kazakhstan’s Kazinform news agency.

The Chinese have taken on this major central Asian project where other foreign investors have previously feared to tread. Two years ago, the South Korean company LG Chem abandoned a longstanding plan to invest in an 800,000 tonnes per year PE complex in western Kazakhstan.

The firm, part of Korea’s giant LG group, pulled out of the local joint venture in Atyrau, blaming sharply rising investment costs and low oil prices.

LG said in early 2016 it preferred to divert its investment funds to “more promising” business areas.

The Aktyubinsk project is understood to be intended to link to China’s regional ‘One Belt, One Road’ development initiative.