On Tuesday March 27th, the first shipment of ethylene was delivered under the Polimery Police project, arriving at the Offshore Gas Terminal in Police. The first 3,500 tonnes of the raw material were delivered to Grupa Azoty Polyolefins S.A. on board the Gaschem Rhone vessel. The company estimates its annual ethylene requirement at about 13,000 tonnes.
Ethylene will first be used to cool, start up and test the above-ground tank and associated facilities located at the marine terminal, and in the next stage to launch the production of polypropylene copolymers. Ethylene will be stored in the above-ground tank, with a capacity of 12,000 cubic metres, cooled to minus 104 degrees Celsius (-104°C).
The ethylene cargo was delivered by Marubeni International (Europe) GmbH under a contract for the supply of this raw material signed in December 2022.
As at March 14th 2023, the overall stage of completion of Grupa Azoty Group’s flagship project in Police exceeded 99.15% and entered its final phase. The project is of strategic importance to the national economy and will boost growth of Poland’s plastics segment.
“The key feedstock deliveries that will enable the Grupa Azoty Group to bring on stream its new plant Polimery Police – one of the largest capital investment projects in the European chemical industry – are already nearing completion. The first delivery of ethylene that we have just received, following the earlier delivery of propane in December, confirms that we can start the commissioning process of another key section of the polypropylene production unit and the propane dehydrogenation unit,” said Tomasz Hinc, President of the Management Board of Grupa Azoty S.A.
On March 14th 2023, Grupa Azoty Polyolefins and the project’s General Contractor Hyundai Engineering Co., Ltd. signed a document confirming readiness for introduction of hydrocarbons into the plant, effective February 28th 2023. Thus, the company achieved the RFSU (Ready For Start Up) status for three sub-projects: the propylene production unit (PDH), the polypropylene production unit (PP), and the polypropylene logistics infrastructure (PPL), constituting the storage area. The RFSU status on the remaining sub-projects was achieved: on December 21st 2022 at the Offshore Gas Terminal, and on January 31st 2023 at the Auxiliary and Interconnection Facilities.
The purpose of Polimery Police, a project with a total budget of around USD 1.8bn, is to build an integrated chemical complex that will comprise a propylene dehydrogenation plant and a polypropylene production plant, with an annual capacity of up to 437 thousand tonnes. The two key plants have been designed using state-of-the-art technology for great production flexibility and ability to deliver a wide range of polypropylene types. The project also includes the construction of a gas terminal complete with handling and storage infrastructure for sourcing production feedstock by sea as well as numerous auxiliary systems.
