Azernews.Az

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

The gas and chemical industry development in Turkmenistan creates prerequisites for the formation of new promising areas of the processing segment.

Annamurat Ashirov, Head of the Gas Processing Department of the Natural Gas Research Institute, considers that in the near future, Turkmenistan may become the largest producer of synthetic rubbers, the raw materials for which are natural gas and its products - ethylene, propylene, butylene, and also benzene.

"The country has all the necessary resources for this chemical product production, which successfully displaces natural rubber from the sphere of rubber products. The global production and consumption of synthetic rubbers reaches about 15 million tons per year. Annual growth is 3-4 percent," Ashirov noted.

A huge achievement for Turkmenistan’s economy is the commissioning of a polymer plant in Kiyanly. In the future, this enterprise will be able to organize, through the copolymerization of ethylene and propylene, the production of ethylene-propylene rubber, valuable material for the production of a wide range of rubber products.

The next important step in the synthetic rubber production development is the project of a plant for integrated processing of 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas a year at the Bagadzh deposit in Lebap region. It is planned to organize the production of 35,000 tons per year of styrene-butadiene rubber, 5,000 tons of polybutadiene rubber and 25,000 tons per year of polystyrene.

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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94

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