NextChem and MET Development, both subsidiary companies of Italy’s Maire Tecnimont Group, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with MC TAIF JSC (TAIF) to co-develop a new biopolymer plant in the Republic of Tatarstan (Russian Federation).
TAIF is the largest industrial investment company in Tatarstan. The Group’s activities are mainly focussed in the areas of oil and gas processing and petrochemistry, investment, financial and other services. TAIF previously entered into an agreement with the now-defunct Italian PHA producer Bio-on to license that company's technology and to build a PHA production plant in the special economic-industrial zone of Alabuga with an initial capacity of 10,000 tons/year. At that time - summer 2019 - Maire Tecnimont was allegedly asked to consider joining the project as a technical partner.
With the collapse and bankruptcy of Bio-on, the plans were put on hold, but not abandoned.
Under the present agreement, TAIF and Maire Tecnimont Group’s subsidiaries will assess and establish the fundamentals of the joint development collaboration between the two companies. Among others, this will include selecting NextChem to provide the expertise and know-how to carry out the Front End Engineering Design and EPC activities for the realisation of the new biopolymer plant.
As Pierroberto Folgiero, CEO of Maire Tecnimont Group and NextChem, pointed out, the relationship between TAIF and Maire Tecnimont dates all the way back to the1970s. Since then, Maire Technimont has collaborated with TAIF - and in particular with TAIF subsidiary Nizhnekamskneftekhim PJSC - on a succession of major development and construction projects. Today, as the importance of green technology grows, Folgiero emphasised that ‘we are enthusiastic to put our technological and entrepreneurial mindset at the service of such a prominent partner, to support the industrialisation of the green economy in Tatarstan’.
Maire Tecnimont S.p.A., listed on the Milan Stock Exchange, operates around 50 companies in some 45 countries and employs a workforce of 9,100.