The contractor did not provide information about the price of the deal.
The contract was assigned to Lummus Technologies' Novolen business, which licenses polypropylene technology and provides related engineering and technical support/advisory services, the US company said in a statement on Thursday.
The Novolen technology polypropylene plant, to be part of Lukoil Neftochim Burgas, will be the first such plant in Southeast Europe, Lummus Technologies noted.
According to the statement, Lummus’s scope includes the technology licence for a 280 kta polypropylene unitр as well as basic design engineering, training and services, and catalyst supply.
"This award is the second significant polypropylene contract we have signed with Lukoil recently,” Leon de Bruyn, Lummus Technology’s president and CEO, said in the statementр adding that the company's Novolen technology offers the industry’s lowest overall capital and operational costs.
In 2018, Russian media reported that Lukoil is considering the construction of a petrochemical complex, with a production capacity of at least 150,000 tonnes of polypropylene per year, at the site of the Neftochim Burgas refinery in Bulgaria.
"There [in Bulgaria] we are making a small petrochemical complex for propylene and straight-run gasoline. It will be an upgrade to the old production unit," Russian news agency RBC quoted Vagit Alekperov, president and CEO of the Russian energy giant, as saying at the time.
The cost of the petrochemical complex project is estimated at 1 billion euro ($1.2 billion) and construction is expected to be completed in three years, RBC quoted Gazprombank analyst Evgenia Dyshlyuk as saying back then.
According to information published in its website, the Neftochim Burgas refinery, about 15 km away from the coastal city of Burgas, is the largest oil refining enterprise on the Balkan peninsula and a major supplier of fuels for Bulgaria's domestic market. Its operations include receipt, storage and processing of different crudes, delivered by tankers to Rosenets Port terminal, operated by the company under a concession contract from May 2011.
(SeeNews, October 9, 2020)
