Taneko to be Tatarstan’s petrochemical machine building industry’s base

Tatarstan’s industry should be involved at most in the construction of oil refining and petrochemical facilities in Nizhnekamsk, the project run by the Taneko company.

As of 1 March 2009, over 60 companies in Tatarstan concluded agreements with OAO Taneko. The construction employs over 5 thousand people. The minister said the project’s estimated cost was 266 billion rubles. In June 2008, the plant was estimated at 222 billion rubles versus the initial 130 billion rubles, VAT inclusive, including 16.5 billion from the Russian Investment Fund, to build an external transport infrastructure.

Considering that the Tatarstan’s oil companies continuously upgrade equipment and technologies, the minister said local machine builders should expand cooperation with the oil firms. The industry and trade ministry is, jointly with Tatneftechiminvest Holding, completing the formation of a task force on developing cooperation within the local machine building and oil and petrochemical sectors.

The task force’s key objectives will be continuous monitoring and analysis of investment projects implemented in Tatarstan, and devising a concept for a head design company, to operate based on the machine building industry’s capacity.

The Tatneftechiminvest Holding board meeting in April 2009 considered prospective launch of oil and petrochemical equipment manufacturing facilities in Tatarstan. According to experts, the production potential of local plants, if assembled in a cluster, is sufficient to manufacture a wide range of products. Tatarstan, provided that its oil refining is developed, could in the future substitute imported production equipment, creating a new branch, petrochemical machine building.

Setting up a design company would be one of the first steps. Prime Minister Rustam Minnikhanov proposed to implement the plan using the Taneko facilities as a base, since the company has a vast experience in managing larger production facilities. Taneko should be not just a plant, but a management company, able to perform turn-key construction. A large corporation should be established on the Taneko’s base that could in the future be entitled to do capital repair, said the local government's head.