SIBUR’s polystyrene project carries a six-year sales forecast

SIBUR’s new polystyrene facility has a 280-billion-rouble sales forecast for its first six full operating years, alongside a separate catalyst plant projection.

Polystyrene revenue forecast and investment scope

SIBUR’s planned polystyrene facility at Nizhnekamskneftekhim in Tatarstan is forecast to generate 280 billion roubles in product sales during its first six full years of operation. First revenue is expected by 2029. The projections form part of a memorandum accompanying a draft Russian government resolution to expand the Alabuga Special Economic Zone. Investment in the facility is expected to exceed 68 billion roubles over four years after that expansion.

A separate SIBUR catalyst plant at Kazan’s Northern Gate Industrial Park carries a projected cost above 42 billion roubles. It is expected to generate an operating profit in 2029 and 55 billion roubles in revenue over three years following the zone’s expansion. The polystyrene and catalyst figures cover different projects and reporting periods; both remain forecasts attached to the proposed zone expansion.

The wider styrene manufacturing chain

SIBUR announced the wider Nizhnekamsk styrene-chain investment on May 23, 2024. The company’s design capacities for the linked manufacturing stages were:

Ethylbenzene: 350,000 tonnes annually.
Styrene: 400,000 tonnes annually.
Polystyrene: 250,000 tonnes annually.

Polystyrene would be the chain’s final product, using feedstock from the EP-600 ethylene complex. Investment in the full styrene-chain project was expected to exceed 180 billion roubles. At the announcement, construction was scheduled to begin in 2025, with mechanical readiness and commissioning work planned for 2028.

SIBUR

The 2024 industrial programme also envisaged fuller use of an existing ABS-plastics line with design capacity of 60,000 tonnes annually. SIBUR put domestic ABS consumption at about 50,000 tonnes, including roughly 30,000 tonnes of imports. For polystyrene, the company cited 2023 imports of 80,000 tonnes within a market of around 400,000 tonnes. Intended end users included manufacturers of household appliances, food packaging, medical products and construction materials.

Feedstock development and the group investment programme

SIBUR completed construction of the EP-600 ethylene unit at Nizhnekamskneftekhim in early 2025. The company subsequently identified the styrene-chain facilities, then under construction, among the intended users of that feedstock. Its development programme also covered premium metallocene polyethylene capacity for packaging applications.

At the group level, SIBUR was implementing a two-trillion-rouble investment programme that it expected to increase production capacity by 40% by early 2029. More than half had been invested by the Aug 29, 2025 half-year results release. That programme covered the group’s development portfolio.

For the first half of 2025, SIBUR reported revenue of 529.5 billion roubles, down 7.1% year on year, and EBITDA of 193.6 billion roubles, down 16.7%. Net profit was 147.3 billion roubles, a decline of 2.7%. Net debt reached 977 billion roubles at Jun 30, compared with 863 billion roubles at the end of 2024; net debt to EBITDA was 2.2 times.