Stavrolen, a LUKOIL Group petrochemical facility, has resumed commercial output following a complete overhaul of its polypropylene-production unit.

Production at Stavrolen was halted in April 2008 after a fire in the propylene-polymerization reactor. The accident had caused neither a toxic leak, nor any harm to human health or the environment.

It is planned to produce 67,300 tones of general-purpose polypropylene before the end of 2009.

The unit, with an annual capacity of 120 thousand tones, was commissioned in 2007. This is Russia’s first polypropylene-production facility using Dow Chemical’s gas-phase technology called UNIPOL. The unit is also the only one so far owned by the LUKOIL Group’s petrochemical sector.