OREANDA-NEWS. April 14, 2011. A subsidiary of China’s Sinopec has begun construction of USD1.04 billion aromatic hydrocarbons plant in Western Kazakhstan, the company announced.

The processing facility, located at the Atyrau refinery on the Caspian Sea coast, is expected to extract 551,156 tons per year of benzene, paraxylene and other chemical compounds from crude.

Chinese investor Sinopec Tenth Construction Co. will also produce gasoline at Euro-3 and Euro-4 standards at the plant, which will be built in two phases.

The project is scheduled to go online by May 2013, the Platts energy and metals news agency reported China Petrochemical Corp., or Sinopec Group, as saying in the report.

Besides building the aromatics processing plant Sinopec Tenth Construction Co. will also construct nine storage tanks to hold light and heavy refined oil products, as well as a power distribution plant and related facilities.

Sinopec signed the agreement with Kazakh state energy firm KazMunaiGas in 2009. Under the terms of the deal, Sinopec will invest USD1.04 billion into the project.

Government-owned Sinopec is Asia's biggest refiner and a leading producer of chemicals.

The Atyrau refinery will help solve Kazakhstan’s current problem of being able to produce only low-quality gasoline. The plant’s output is expected to meet the needs of the region.

The refinery is the oldest in Kazakhstan and has been in operation since 1945.