Chemistry Plus History: Togliattiazot Celebrates 40th Anniversary

Over these years, the plant has produced 83 million tons of ammonia. This year the ammonia-producing giant, Togliattiazot, celebrates its 40^th anniversary. Everything has changed for the better over this relatively short time, from equipment to processes: the technology of the XXI^st century has moved very far forward. Operations, environment, chemistry — every year these areas experience a breakthrough which used to take decades before. We have made an attempt to look at these changes from the perspective of these veterans in chemistry who witnessed the whole history from the very start.

BORN IN A CHEMICAL REVOLUTION

In all honesty, we should admit: the city of Togliatti is world famous not as a Motor City, but as a center of the chemical industry. In 1979, chemists of Togliatti triumphantly gave the nation the first ton of ammonia. How much of this product so valuable for the chemical industry has “flowed away” via ammonia pipelines and in tanks by railroad over these 40 years? Nothing short of tens of millions of tons! The 2018 year-end results are quite eloquent: the chemists of Togliattiazot are looking forward to celebrate the anniversary with “even higher commitments”. “Just to think, there was a time when the first ton was produced... - When the first output came, everyone was so excited! Petroleum workers wash with oil, and we flew fistfuls of urea up into the sky,” recalls veteran of Shop No. 08К Mikhail Tsaplin. Mikhail Leonidovitch has been working at Urea Unit No. 1 since 1977. The joint history of the plant and Mikhail Tsaplin began in 1976, when the youth in a company of his fellows from Penza Region set at a desk in Vocational School No. 52, the alma mater for the workers of the future chemical giant. A year later he crossed the clock house of the plant for the first time.

“The construction project impressed with its scale, hum and machine noise all around, people buzzing around,” recalls Mikhail Leonidovitch with a smile. “Wherever you look, there is a huge territory, an equipment base, everything is fenced. My first impression from the plant is dirt up to my knee and a lot of canteens. There were thousands of people working at the site, as if in an ant hill. Every day we used to go to the equipment base. We were given an assignment, e. g. we had to find some valves, dampers, electrodes or pipes. We would walk along the rows, write down the required items into a notebook, then delivered them to the construction site where contractors would install the equipment. Can you imagine, how proud the veteran is today to walk through modern plant sites and read about the performance indicators of his dear team which already show six-zero numbers? Last July Unit No. 5 “gave the country” the 11 millionth ton of products if counting from the date of launch, and towards the end of the year Units No. 1 and Unit No. 7 reached a 12-million figure. Another person to know the plant from its very birth is Valentina Rzhevskaya: her record of service as a former geodesist at Togliattiazot is 31 years. Despite the fact that she as been enjoying her well-deserved retirement for more than ten years, she still remembers the exact location of many of the plant facilities. She herself marked them on the map of the future enterprise in the remote year 1975.

“Construction activities at the future nitrogen plant went on at a fast pace: the first ammonia unit was growing by leaps and bounds,” recalls the veteran. “I remember mapping the plant out. The facilities were then set up based on our drawings. It was very difficult to retire, as if I had lost something important. But I can see that the youth continues the legacy in good faith, understanding that chemistry is the future. Today’s veterans Vladimir Barabanshchikov and Tatyana Lukyanchenko joined TOAZ when they were young people in 1977. To be more specific, there was no TOAZ at that time.

“The area of the future plant accommodated just one big excavation pit with concrete and reinforcement bars all round. To put it shortly, a construction site,” recalls Vladimir Barabanshchikov, a former shift manager at the plant’s urea production units. “The first urea was produced at Unit No. 1 in 1979. At Unit No. 2 it was in 1980. It cannot be forgotten, no matter how many years have passed so far.

“It was a challenging, but interesting time,” recalls Tatyana Lukyanchenko with a smile.

“My husband and I used to work in shifts. Our children were small and often there was nobody to leave them with. I remember urea was spilled as it was prepared for shipment, and we had an ironclad rule: nobody leaves work until everything has been finished and the shift has been turned over properly. So the baby is home alone while we are bringing our shift to a close. We are worried about the kid, but do not give up on the work! CONSTRUCTION YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW Nowadays chemists do not fall behind their predecessors and break they own records every day. And a basic premise for all new achievement is modernisation. In 2018, TOAZ workers finalised scheduled major overhaul of Unit No. 7. Major repairs have also been completed at Urea Unit No. 2 that is to be put into operation after the installation of a new reactor in August, which is a landmark event. 300 tons heavy and 40 metres long, the apparatus has replaced its fellow after 35 years of service.

“This apparatus is the starting point in the urea production process,” says Project Management Leader Vyacheslav Komarov. “If the process is stable at this stage of production, then all of the following assemblies up to the prilling tower will work okay.” The team of Unit No. 5 are also proud of their performance. Here, ammonia output rose to 1,750 tons a day. According to the year-end results, the unit was recognised to be the most productive: in 2018 it demonstrated a record-breaking output of 583,300 tons and took the lead among the AM-76 family units. During the year the plant had the automatic control systems replaced at Ammonia Unit No. 3 and throughput of on-site railway tracks increased by 40 %. The focal event for TOAZ was the launch of construction at Urea Unit No. 3. It is the largest investment project in the contemporary history of the company. The new unit will help increase urea output from 3,000 to 5,200 tons a day. For the first time, such a construction project undertaken at the enterprise is financed with an international loan. Top-rank Western banks approved allocations after thorough investigation of all aspects of activity in Togliatti, including care or people and the environment.

No concerns were raised.

NO CHEMICAL EMISSIONS INTO WATER AND AIR!

Although the word “ecology” became part of our everyday life not so long ago, care for the environment was traced in the work of chemists even 40 years back. The interests of Togliatti residents were taken into account as early as at the stage of plat design. The plant was located outside the city, 12 km away from the nearest communities, and constructed in relation to the wind rose so that the plant’s activities do not impact the air of Togliatti. Nevertheless chemists do not deny responsibility for the out-of-town environment, either: systemic work on the mitigation of environmental impact has been run for the entire 40-year period, and particularly actively in the recent years. Besides, with the exception of targeted environmental campaigns, it happens almost automatically — simultaneously with the upgrade of technology and modernisation of equipment. For example, the introduction of two units by Monsanto (Italy) for hydrogen separation from purge gas which was previously burnt at the flare, allows reusing it as an input product at the ammonia synthesis assembly.

Compliance with environmental standards is monitored by the industrial laboratory and the laboratory of the biological treatment facilities. After biological treatment at Togliattiazot treatment facilities, effluents are qualified as “treated to standard quality”. Samara Region has only to biological treatment facilities that ensure this level of wastewater treatment. At the moment Togliattiazot is considering a project for the modernisation of treatment facilities in order to recirculate up to a third of total effluents and reduce consumption of river water.

“If previously biological effluents were treated with chloride, eight years ago TOAZ implemented an ultraviolet water purification system,” told Chief Operating Officer Viktor Kazachkov.

“Our enterprise is planning a project for recirculation of treated wastewater instead of river water. The volume of water will be from 1,000 to 1,500 cubic meters an hour.

A advanced mobile environmental laboratory system was acquired to monitor the quality of air in the buffer zone and at the industrial site. The basis of the measuring system is a high-sensitivity infrared interferometer spectrometer, which is capable of automatically analyse air composition by 20 ingredients every 2-4 minutes, which is 100-500 times faster than conventional methods of air quality monitoring.

“In 2018, TOAZ reduced the volume of air emissions to 2,470 tons, which is 60 % lower than the previous year (4,190 tons),” summarised Chief Executive Officer at ZAO Corporation Togliattiazot Vyacheslav Suslov.

SOCIAL PACKAGE AS GOOD AS IN THE SOCIALIST PERIOD As the plant activities rolled out, there was a rapid development of Komsomolsky District. In just five years 200,000 square metres of housing was built for TOAZ, not to mentions kindergartens, a hospital, a school, a community center, and a health-and-recreation center. 40 years later, Togliattiazot remains a socially oriented company: at the end of 2018 a new block of flats was commissioned for plant workers. 55 workers of the enterprise received keys for their new apartments.

“People are the core asset,” emphasised Vyacheslav Suslov, congratulating the new tenants. “We made up our mind a long time ago that care for personnel and their families is very important. And housing is a platform for a close-knit family. The new house is a New Year’s present for all the employees, and a contribution to better quality of our team’s life. I hope that this event makes the life of TOAZ workers more comfortable, calm and satisfactory.

The plant veterans can be proud of the social policy pursued by their successors. For example, the collective agreement of Togliattiazot has once again been recognised the best in the region. It includes a lot of provisions of which most residents of the post-Soviet territory have successfully forgotten. For example, the plant has retained its industry-sponsored kindergarten. Plant workers can work hard knowing that their babies will be well attended in the Tulip.

ANNIVERSARY STRIDES ACROSS THE PLANT Celebrations already started at the end of 2018: On December 28, the 40^th anniversary was celebrated by Workshop No. 13, which is the first production facility at Togliattiazot. Veteran can still remember well the roof being erected over the cylindrical tank of the ammonia treatment workshop: the dome weighed 180 tons and had a diameter of 40 meters. The roof was elevated with compressed air to a height of 41 metre.

“The roof of the insulated tank was not set from up above, but from the bottom. A strong stream of air was supplied with a compressor making the roof rise, and at the top welders welded it to the body,” recall one of the witnesses of the event instrumentation technician Vladimir Shambarov. “Before elevating the roof, we attached two flags onto it, a Soviet one and a French one (representatives of French contractor SMP were involved in the commissioning of the facilities). Imagine a picture: a large tank from the interior of which two flags are going up slowly followed by a big roof. It was picturesque.

In November 1980, the ammonia treatment workshop shipped the first 60 tons of ammonia to the Togliatti - Odessa main line. Today, 40 years later, the workshop transports up to 60 tons of ammonia an hour only for urea production. Today the workshop employs around a hundred people. And if ten years ago a third of them were veterans, now the team is younger.

“Of five shift foremen, only one is a veteran. It is Elena Bocharova, an honoured employee of Togliattiazot and a holder of multiple corporate and industry awards,” says Workshop Manager Vyacheslav Egorov-Ekimkov. “The rest of the team, i. e. Vladimir Tsekh, Alexander Sablin, Igor Stakhovets and Irina Zotova, are offshoots of the intrashop skill pool system. Central Electrical Maintenance Shop No. 27 is another plant division which celebrated the anniversary the earliest. It is responsible for the restoration of sophisticated electrical equipment which then fuels every plant unit.

“The workload is high, since we provide services to the whole plan,” notes Workshop Manager Evgeny Fedyanov. “We also take on non-routine orders. Last year, together with Workshop No. 93, we prepared a New Year’s present for Komsomolsky District by making giant Christmas tree light ornaments for street decoration.

Production facilities were launched one by one, but the entire plant celebrates its birthday on April 7. The day when the first ton of ammonia, the core product of the enterprise, was produced. One of the people who launched Unit No. 1 was Nikolay Sokolov, a graduate of the first group of the technical school specifically established to train personnel for the future chemical enterprise. The competition among the group applicants was similar to an institute. Plant workers were guaranteed housing within a two-year period, and their hopes were not disappointed. Nikolay Nikolayevitch, who joined the enterprise at the age of a bit over 20, is still working shifts at his unit.

“Over these 40 years we have grown old, much has changed at a country level, and the unit has been upgraded dramatically,” told Remote Control Operator Nikolay Sokolov. “The unit arrived from America, and we had to redesign much of it in the course of operation, e. g. there were extreme temperatures of minus forty in the year of the launch, while it was designed to operate at minus ten degrees only. Thanks to the modernisation, the unit has become safer and more efficient.

This argument is supported by Nikolay’s colleague Senior Reforming Unit Operator Viktor Korzin, who left AvtoVAZ for the sake of the newly built chemical giant back in 1978.

“It goes without saying that we got this equipment from Americans in a”rawish” condition. Our Unit No. 1 could not be operated even for a week without being shut down,” recalls Viktor Nikolayevitch. “But our engineers played their part having ensured uninterrupted operations for years.” Renovation is still in progress!

Efim Schwartz also has something to compare present-day plant advances to. Unit 1 Operator joined the enterprise in 1978 and still believes it to be the best decision he has ever made.

“I like my profession very much. When you know and love what you do, your job makes you happy,” believes the veteran of the industry. “The team is my family (my wife, by the way, also works at the plant): everyone is willing to lend their shoulder. There is no other way in our profession: the work of every operator, shift and workshop is interconnected. We have uninterrupted production, you know. And everybody feels responsible before their colleagues and the plant. The plant is accountable for us, too. In the 1990s, for example, when the whole country was flat broke, we had stable employment and salary. It has been so to the present day!

Extending the thought of Efim Borisovitch, it is safe to say that the warm relationship between the plant and its workers will continue. Because today, just like before, the products of TOAZ are much-in-demand, important and valuable. That means there will be more anniversaries to come!

Source:

https://www.kp.ru/daily/26963/4018483/