Irkutsk Oil Company launches Russia’s second largest helium plant

MOSCOW, Jun 13 (PRIME) -- Irkutsk Oil Company (IOC) has launched Russia’s second largest helium plant at the Yaraktinskoye oil and gas condensate field in the Irkutsk Region, the company said on Tuesday citing CEO Yakov Ginzburg.

"IOC has launched a helium plant at the Yaraktinskoye oil and gas condensate field (in the Irkutsk Region) in a test mode,” the executive said as quoted by the company.

“The plant is working in a test mode and is gradually being switched to an operating mode with a capacity to 10 million liters per year."

The facility was launched as part of a second stage of a gas chemical cluster project and completed a technological chain of natural and associated gas processing with deep extraction of valuable components.

IOC is also considering building a plant producing liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Ust-Kut with a capacity of up to 250 million cubic meters of methane per year, Ginzburg said. The LNG may be consumed by the national market and exported to Mongolia and China.

The company plans to complete a methane pipeline project from the Markovskoye deposit to Ust-Kut with a capacity of up to 5.6 billion cubic meters per year in 2023. A second methane pipeline, between Yaraktinskoye and Markovskoye, is being considered.

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