Sibur - Geogrids1 October 2009 – A ceremonial launch of a new unit for flat geogrid production under the trade mark Apropat took place at Plastik plant, a subsidiary enterprise of SIBUR. The design capacity of the unit is 3 kta.

According to current forecasts of the market conditions, when the design capacity of flat geogrid production is attained, the annual earnings of the enterprise will increase by 550 million RUR.

Employees of the plant have been retrained for operation of the new equipment concurrent to installation of the geogrid production lines.

A similar geogrid production unit with 3 kta capacity was commissioned in August 2009 at Orton, another enterprise of SIBUR in the Kemerovo Region.

Furthermore, in 2010 Orton and Plastik are planning to start production of polypropylene nonwoven geomaterials which are also used in road, oil-and-gas and industrial-and-civil construction. The total capacity of the lines that have been bought by now from O.R.V. Manufacturing S.p.A., Italy, will be up to 18.2 kta of nonwoven geomaterials.

Start of the new lines at both enterprises will enable SIBUR to increase its market share in Russian production output of geosynthetic materials up to 20%. Due to commissioning of the new units for production of geogrids and nonwoven geomaterials earnings of Plastik may increase by 2012 by 1.1 billion RUR.

The final processing of plastics is intended, among other things, to stimulate the demand for products made of polypropylene, production of which will multiply due to commissioning of new capacities by the company in the coming years.

For more information, visit SIBUR online:
http://sibur.ru/eng/