Sibur buys films and tapes company Novatek-Polymer

Moscow-based Sibur sees Novatek-Polymer, a manufacturer of plastics pipe insulating tape and packaging films, as a ready downstream outlet for its increasing polyolefins production. For Novatek, which operates in the gas-rich autonomous northern Siberian territory of Yamalo-Nenets, the deal will allow it to focus on its gas extraction and processing, it said.

Novatek-Polymer, based in Novokuibyshevsk in Russia’s Samara region, manufactures more than a dozen polyethylene and polypropylene films and insulating tapes. It is the largest producer of corrosion-resistant materials used to insulate underground pipelines in Russia and the CIS states. It makes heat-shrinkable tape and sleeves to protect welded pipe joints and polymer tape and wrap.

In 2005, the company extended its range with the launch of a biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) film production line to make packaging for the food, tobacco, perfume, pharmaceuticals and textile industries. The firm also produces PE pipe and PP compounds.

In recent years, it has seen decreasing demand for cold applied tapes in favour of heat-shrinkable insulation tape for which consumption is growing. Last year, it saw a 26% decline in production volumes of insulating materials as a result of changes in the timing of capital projects in the domestic oil and gas sector.

Customers for the company’s insulating materials are largely Russia’s oil and gas sector groups, while its polymer products are exported to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

‘’In coming years, the company (Sibur) will repeatedly increase its production capacity for polypropylene, and the presence of a rapidly growing sales channel will increase the sale of polymers on the domestic market,’’ commented Sibur president Dmitry Konov.

Under the deal, a 32% stake in Novatek-Polymer was transferred to Sibur after the initial agreement with the remaining 68% to be acquired following formal approval of the transaction by the Russian federal anti-monopoly authority. Sibur is owned by Russian oil and gas group Gazprom.

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