Togliattiazot’s third urea unit 40% complete by end of 2020

In 2020, the construction of the unit proceeded at an active pace; in total, at the end of the year, the construction of the plant was 40% complete. During the last year, 695 workers and 35 units of construction equipment were involved in the project. 84% of all equipment of the future unit has already been delivered to TOAZ warehouses.

By the end of 2020, the foundations for the main buildings and buildings of the future unit were completed, and 651 piles for the foundations were installed. The main volume of earthworks has been completed on the project - more than 44 000 m³ of soil have been developed, the installation of underground utilities has also been completed and almost 4 km of underground pipelines have been installed.

In 2020, the construction and installation of the key facilities of the third urea unit was completed: a granulation tower, a reactor, distillation columns and a hydrolyser. The granulation tower has become one of the tallest buildings in Togliatti with a height of 107 m. The total weight of 48 items of equipment, which was installed in 2020, is 1500 t. More than 15 000 m3 of reinforced concrete structures and almost 3500 t of metal structures were assembled.

In 2020, two rounds of measurements were carried out in the framework of monitoring the level of noise, vibration and the impact of the construction project of the third urea unit on the environment and the health of employees. Based on the results of the measurements, conclusions were made about the absence of a negative impact of the project.

Special attention was paid to safety issues at the construction site. More than 20 000 man-hours were spent on instructing and training personnel on health, safety and environmental protection issues. A system of safe organisation of work has been introduced at the construction area, which is constantly monitored by 16 labour protection specialists. Construction managers personally participated in 41 site inspections. Another 180 inspection raids were carried out by health, safety and environmental specialists. At the end of 2020, 98.8% of the identified violations in terms of health, safety and environmental protection had been eliminated.

In October 2018, TOAZ commenced construction of urea unit No. 3 at the production area in Togliatti. The design capacity of the unit will amount to 2200 tpd of urea, which will increase the production capacity of the enterprise for the production of urea by more than 70%.

The project budget is over RUB25 billion financed by TOAZ and with the help of attracted financing. In March 2018, TOAZ signed a loan agreement with a syndicate of banks Commerzbank AG (Zurich, Switzerland) and Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (Stuttgart, Germany) for €180 million for a period of nine years. The Swiss Export Credit Agency (SERV) acted as a guarantor.

Project cooperation with Casale S.A. is taking into account technologies for industrial and environmental safety. This is confirmed by the positive conclusions of the state environmental and the main state expertise, issued in 2018 and 2020. The degree of purification of emissions from the unit will reach 93%. The technological chain is designed in such a way that after the commissioning of the new unit, the volume of carbon dioxide emissions from TOAZ, which is the waste of several ammonia units, in the atmosphere will be reduced. The effluent from the unit will undergo eight stages of treatment, and separate waste will be transferred to specialised organisations for utilisation, neutralisation or disposal.

The construction area employs almost 700 people, 90% of whom live in Togliatti and the Samara region. After the commissioning of production, about 80 more people will receive high-paying jobs.

The expected date for putting the unit into operation is late 2021 - early 2022.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldfertilizer.com/project-news/15042021/togliattiazots-third-urea-unit-40-complete-by-end-of-2020/