On July 29, 2021, volunteer emergency response teams of the Company's divisions took part at the GSO-3 gas rescue training ground exercises. Mr. Airat Safin, General Director of PJSC Nizhnekamskneftekhim, greeted the participants of the competition. He noted the importance of enhancing the level of readiness of personnel for eventual emergencies.
Educational and training sessions are the main forms of acquiring practical skills in the localization and accident response by executives and specialists, personnel, non-staff emergency rescue teams. In general, the Company annually conducts about 5,000 drills and training sessions.
During the exercise, the teams of volunteer emergency response had to show their practical skills required to rectify the emergency situations. The competition included four stages.
It was necessary to remove and install plugs on the gas pipeline, remove the victim from the vessels, find and take the victim out of the gas-polluted area, and provide first aid.
The exercise covered 13 teams. According to the results of the competition, the team of the SK Plant took the 1st place, the Plastics Plant took the second place, and the Water and Sewerage Lines and Waste Water Treatment team took the third place.The hearings were held at the premises of the MBOU DO Children's Ecological and Biological Center by the videoconference. One hundred and forty five people attended the discussion.
Mr. Irek Aglyamov, First Deputy General Director, Chief Engineer of PJSC Nizhnekamskneftekhim addressed the audience with a welcoming speech.
Mr. Oleg Grishakov, Deputy Chief Engineer for Environmental Protection, Head of the Environmental Safety Department, spoke about the company's sustainable development and environmental programs at PJSC Nizhnekamskneftekhim. He provided information on the project for the modernization of the wastes landfill, which is an important environmental protection facility, and its modernization will improve the ecological component of the Nizhnekamsk Region’s life.
Ms. Elena Petrova, Chief Engineer of SK Gidrokor LLC, made a report on the modernization project. She noted that the industrial waste landfill site was built according to the project of Giprokauchuk Design Institute and was put into operation in 1982. It is intended for storage of solid and slurred industrial waste of hazard classes III and IV. The waste landfill site is divided into two areas: a production area and a secondary area. The production area is a system of 48 map deposits isolated from each other.
As part of this modernization, it is intended to revamp the existing positive cut-off (diaphragm wall), that will ensure the protection of the soil and groundwater from the penetration of filtrate water from the landfill due to avoidance of the passage of groundwater through the landfill site and the release of contaminated water to the neighboring area. The changes will also affect the arrangement of the drainage system for collecting surface water, and the removal of leachate from the landfill. The regulating pond will also be modernized with an increase of the accumulating capacity and a platform for surface drainage, and collection of storm water will be equipped.
Revamp of eight waste disposal map deposits is planned to bring them in line with the current regulatory documents. The works include the leveling of the base of the areas with backfilling using uncontaminated soil, waterproofing of the bottom and slopes of the map deposits with geosynthetic materials.
Decommissioned will be 36 deposits. In this connection, reclamation actions will be carried out there.
The design solutions also provide for the modernization of the secondary areas of the landfill.
The activities scheduled in terms of the revamp are aimed at preventing and reducing the adverse effects of the facility on the environment (soil, surface and underground waters, atmospheric air), and to increase the service life of the landfill and bringing it up to environmental safety requirements. The scheduled timeline of the activities planned is maximum three years, including the phase of design and survey works.
Ms. Elena Petrova also noted that the finding based on the assessment materials for the impact of the project "Modernization of the Wastes Landfill" on the environment showed that the project documentation meets the requirements of the Russian environmental laws.
At public hearings, everyone could ask questions of interest and receive comprehensive answers to them.
The hearings were acknowledged valid, and the draft EIA was brought to the attention of the population. The project "Modernization of the Wastes Landfill" was approved and supported almost unanimously: 134 people voted in favor, only 7 people abstained.Can global warming be stopped? How can industrial plants reduce their greenhouse gas emissions? These and other issues formed the basis of the seminar on the topic “Global climate change and management of greenhouse gas emissions at the company level”, which was held for the specialists of the Company by the representatives of the International Center for Sustainable Energy Development under the auspices of UNESCO via video conferencing. The seminar was attended by Ekaterina Bliznetskaya, chief specialist of the Climate Policy Department of Carbonlab LLC, and Alexander Chernokulsky, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, member of the Council of Young Scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The seminar was conducted in person at a meeting with the company's specialists, Mikhail Yulkin, an expert of the International Center for Sustainable Energy Development under the auspices of UNESCO. He is a member of the interdepartmental working group on economic aspects of environmental protection and regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia. Mikhail Yulkin announced data on the current state of affairs in the field of global climate change and noted that natural disasters now observed in different countries of the world are due to the impact of so-called greenhouse gases on the environment. These include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, synthetic chemicals, and water vapor. The excessive presence of these gases, which are sourced from industrial plants, has an adverse effect on the environment.
The world community considers regulation of greenhouse gas emissions to be one of the solutions to the problem. A similar system is currently in place in the United States and Canada. Russian industrial enterprises also follow this path.
Oleg Grishakov, Deputy Chief Engineer for Environmental Protection, Head of the Environmental Safety Department of PJSC Nizhnekamskneftekhim, told the audience about the company's experience in this area. The company conducts annually an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions and participates in a project to disclose carbon reporting.
– Since 2016, Nizhnekamskneftekhim has been providing data - carbon reporting in CDP format at the request of global tire companies. In addition, the enterprise prepares reports on direct and indirect energy emissions on a voluntary basis according to the methods approved by the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation, - said Oleg Grishakov.
He also noted that in July of this year, a new federal law on limiting greenhouse gas emissions was issued, which comes into force in December, 2021. And, accordingly, Nizhnekamskneftekhim will, like all organizations, execute it. The company is ready for this.
Svetlana Yamkova, head of the environmental protection department of the Сompany, also added that in connection with the ongoing changes, and based on the requests of product consumers, a climate strategy will be formed in the near future.
Railroad transport department of the Company summed up the results of work for 6 months of 2021. The fulfillment of the plan for the volume of transportation of finished products during this period amounted to almost 2.5 million tons of cargo, this is an increase of 192.7 thousand tons in relation to 2020.
The department successfully copes with the tasks set for arrangement of cargo and commercial work to ensure the export of marketable products, receiving chemical raw materials, supplying tanks to loading and unloading racks and providing the company's divisions with serviceable rolling stock. Railroad transport department provides the entire range of services to third-party organizations - during the reporting period 1.2 million tons of cargo were transported. In addition, the department's specialists provide services for the scheduled types of freight car repairs. So, for 6 months of 2021, 657 units of rolling stock were repaired in the freight car repair depot, of which 292 cars of third-party organizations scheduled types of repairs were carried out on a contractual basis.
The department strictly monitors the condition of railway tracks, the length of which is over 68 km. Also, specialists of the track services serve 184 turnouts and 79 railway crossings.
In 2021, work was carried out on recertification to confirm the conformity of the application of the mark "1431" of the freight car repair depot at the Federal Agency for Railway Transport and the section for repairing diesel locomotives of the locomotive facility at Federal budgetary institution "Register of certification on federal railway transport".
The Coding Department has registered and assigned to the Company the BIC code "NKNU" for 25 containers owned by NKNK, which will allow the transportation of goods in these containers in international traffic.
At the construction site of the new EP-600 Olefin Complex of the Company these days another important stage of the project is underway. The installation of a 78-meter-span overpass with a weight of 315 tons has begun at the site. The overpass is intended for laying pipelines and cables.
The overpass consists of three sections. A special technique is used to assemble and secure the span.
- At the first stage of the overpass installation, we lift the block-modular part with a crawler crane with a lifting capacity of 350 tons. The second section of the span is a block-modular structure weighing 100 tons, we plan to use two cranes with a lifting capacity of 220 and 350 tons at its installation. The third section weighs 15 tons, we will lift it with a 100-ton crane and this will complete the installation. Our specialists have carefully planned this important work, we have been preparing for this for three months, - says Mazlum Shishmek, Head of Structural Steel at Gemont LLC.
Now about 3,200 persons work at EP-600 site, 2,300 of whom are builders of blue-collar occupations. Dmitry Yarovitsyn, Deputy General Director for Capital Construction of PJSC Nizhnekamskneftekhim, noted that the overall dynamics of construction is assessed positively - to date, construction and installation work has been completed by 30%. 100 out of 170 thousand cubic meters of concrete, structural concrete - about 35 thousand cubic meters are grouted. 18.5 thousand tons of steel structures out of 47.9 have been installed.
Another important event in the implementation of the project for the construction of a new CCGT-PP of PJSC Nizhnekamskneftekhim has increased. A month after the firing up of the first gas turbine, on July 8, the specialists of the station launched a second similar plant. In August, it is planned to synchronize gas turbines No. 1 and No. 2. Concurrently with this, a whole complex of commissioning of the main and auxiliary equipment continues at the CCGT-PP, including testing the protection of the emergency power supply system, gas compressor, fire extinguishing system, auxiliary cooling system of the main building, cooling system of gaseous fuel preparation plant building, main circulating water system, condensate drainage system of waste-heat boilers, and booster compressor station cooling systems.
Also, personnel is being recruited at the CCGT-PP. A total of 92 specialists will be hired, about 80% of the shift personnel has already been staffed.
The new steam-gas 495 MW unit of the Company will become a reliable energy basis for both existing and new petrochemical plants. The products of associated petroleum gases processing from blow-offs of the production facilities of NKNK are the main type of fuel to be used. This will become an important competitive advantage for CCGT-PP, both from an economic point of view and the point of view of reducing the impact on the environment.
For comparison: at the plants, where the classic steam-turbine cycle is implemented, the electrical efficiency is about 32%. And at CCGT-PP, the steam-gas cycle, due to its high efficiency, provides a higher electrical efficiency - about 50%. Moving from a steam - turbine to a steam-gas cycle, the power industry has made a real revolutionary breakthrough.Put out the fire and evacuate people from the burning building. This is the scenario of fire-tactical exercises among the units of the detachment of the Federal Fire Service of Nizhnekamsk branch of the Office of Contractual Units for the Republic of Tatarstan, which took place in the territory of the central office of PJSC Nizhnekamskneftekhim on July 18.
A fire broke out in the 11-storey building according to the scenario. It happened in one of the offices on the 6th floor due to a short circuit of computer equipment. According to the plan of the exercise, the automatic fire extinguishing system did not trip, and three workers were unable to leave the building on their own.
Immediately, the duty guard of fire and salvage unit (PSCH) - 29 arrived at the place. After conducting reconnaissance, the head of the unit, Mikhail Potapov, transferred the information collected to the central fire station and ordered a combat deployment. The units of smoke divers PSCH-29, PSCH-30 and PSCH-35 were sent to the smoky building to search and rescue the people who remained in it, to eliminate the fire. The personnel of PSCH-47 located a control point, loudspeaker communication and a smoke exhauster.
The gas-smoke rescue service (GDZS) units found two victims on the 1st and 3rd floors. One of them could not move independently and was carried out on a stretcher. According to the terms of the exercise, access to the third worker was cut off by fire and the firefighters carried out his rescue from the window of the 6th floor using a ladder truck.
New equipment – tanks for storing finished products - will be installed at Metoxpolyethylene Glycols production facility. The production of metoxpolyethylene glycols at Oligomer and Glycol Plant of Nizhnekamskneftekhim was started in 2019. The products became widely used in pharmaceutical industry, coating and metalworking industries, where MPEG is used as a binder.
Workshop No. 6711 of the Oligomers and Glycol Plant is involved in the process of MPEG production. Finished products are stored in the adjacent workshop No. 6712. For this purpose, five vertical tanks are installed here. In connection with the expansion of the brand assortment of produced MPEGs, it was decided to increase the number of storage tanks up to eight.
Nizhnekamskneftekhim is currently working on installation of new equipment. The MPEG storage facility will be equipped with a pumping unit for circulation and pumping the product to the tank car loading and receiving rack. The installation of a new product storage facility as well as commissioning operations are scheduled to be completed by the end of August.Today the cargo vessel "Oksky-56" delivered process equipment for the grassroots EP-600 Complex at PJSC Nizhnekamskneftekhim. The valuable cargo - a decoking air compressor package unit - arrived at the industrial port "TransKama". The injection compressor was manufactured in South Korea and sent to Russia by sea through the Indian Ocean on a special barge.
The package unit includes two compressors. One of them is designed to supply plant and instrument air to the process workshops within EP-600 Complex. The other compressor is used to supply compressed air to the coils of pyrolysis furnaces for decoking. The equipment will be installed in the water treatment shop No.7209 of EP-600 Complex.
The compressor unit will be the last lot of equipment delivered by water transport. The delivery of the main part of large-sized equipment, in particular, 17 process columns for EP-600, was carried out in the navigation period of 2020 - from April to October. The cargo delivery will now continue by land transport.
Currently, more than 2,500 employees of Gemont LLC and more than 150 units of construction equipment have been mobilized at the construction site.
Eighty nine thousand cubic meters of reinforced concrete structures were manufactured, more than 16,700 tons of steel structures were assembled. Three hundred and thirteen units of equipment have been installed on the foundation; work has begun on the installation of pumping and compressor equipment
At a joint meeting of Commission of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and the Council of the Russian Union of Chemists, held in June, a whole range of issues was discussed related to the polymer industry in Russia. Among those issues were urgent problems and high-quality development of production facilities, processing of plastics and polymers, extended responsibility of manufacturers of polymer products, effective recycling models applicable in the industry, promising materials, technologies and others.
The main subject of the discussion was the task of improving competitiveness and profitability of domestic enterprises. More than 100 experts of the polymer industry, representing enterprises of the real sector of the economy engaged in the production of polymer raw materials, finished products from it and the processing of plastics and polymers, as well as public and industry organizations, leading research institutes and specialized universities, analytical centers of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia and the Ministry of Energy of Russia took part in the work of the Commission.
Addressing the audience, President of the Russian Union of Chemists Viktor Ivanov highlighted the need for consolidated actions by all representatives of the polymer industry in terms of development, production and processing of polymers.
PJSC Nizhnekamskneftekhim and PJSC SIBUR expressed their point of view on polymer production in Russia. They consider the key tasks to be the expansion of the brand assortment of products, joint research activities, as well as the development of new products instead of raw material offers.
According to Anas Zakirov, Head of System Solutions Promotion Division of PJSC Nizhnekamskneftekhim, in order to enhance the competitiveness and profitability of production facilities, the Company has begun assessing its own capabilities for the production of small- and medium-tonnage chemistry products. In addition, PJSC Nizhnekamskneftekhim, as reported, plans increasing the production of polypropylene and polystyrene by 2.5 times in 2024. Thus, the total volume of plastics production will reach more than 1.4 million tons.
The main obstacles to the implementation of the company's goals in domestic and international markets were also noted, including a system of restrictive measures (carbon regulation, reform of fuel subsidies, trade liberalization in environmental goods), which is formed by European countries under the guise of achieving environmental goals, and artificial administrative barriers for the development of plastics processing facilities created within Russia under the guise of bans on the production of hard-to-recycle plastics.
The audience was greatly interested in the report of Mikhail Katsevman - Chairman of the Board of the Union of Plastics Processors, Director for Science and Development of Scientific Industrial Enterprise Polyplastic. According to the expert estimates, there are currently about 9,600 companies involved in the processing of plastics in Russia. More than 200 thousand employees work in these enterprises. In times of crisis, small business suffers most of all, and it is represented in the structure of polymer processing by small and ultra-small companies, the total number of which is 7,900, and the volume of production is 20% of the market.
According to the expert, the market way of doing business in Russia today is quite unstable and can be effective only thanks to a diversified regulatory base, which is almost non-existent in the field of polymers in Russia today. Due to the serious dependence on imports, the processing industry is subject to all fluctuations in the international economy and is not protected either by internal laws or by the competencies of specialists. With a steady growth in the production of raw materials, which is advancing at a faster pace and leads to a surplus of polymers within the country, today domestic processors have a shortage of raw materials for processing. A special circumstance to be considered by state institutions in their analysis should be the fact that annually Russia exports products from polymer raw materials worth $ 1 billion, and purchases finished products from plastics and polymers worth $ 4 billion.
Valery Petrosyan, Professor Emeritus of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences, reminded the audience about the extended responsibility of manufacturers of polymer products.
Another topic for discussion was the issue of bioethanol production in Russia. President of the Russian Union of Chemists Viktor Ivanov, who was supported by all the participants in the meeting of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs on the chemical industry, come forward with an initiative to develop this promising area for our country. Thus, a proposal was formed to include in the Commission's decision the necessary set of non-financial supporting measures for the launch of bioethanol production facilities.
Based on the results of the commission meeting, a draft decision of the Commission was prepared. Within two weeks, it will be finalized to incorporate all proposals of representatives of the polymer industry, and will become the basis for the industry's appeal to the Government of the Russian Federation.