Linde Aktiengesellschaft has signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with the Lipetsk Region Government; the document was signed by Acting Head of Lipetsk Region Igor Artamonov, and Linde executives Oliver Pfann (Managing Director for the Middle East and Eastern Europe), and Thomas Hilker (Director for Development of Large-Scale Projects in Russia and Kazakhstan).
Linde Engineering, a leading international gas and engineering company, plans to build and launch a new air separation plant in the central Russian Lipetsk Region, as well as to develop the necessary infrastructure for the production of industrial gases.
The RUR7.7 bln ($118 mio) air separation plant project is part of the Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) modernization. The facility will be built by 2021 and will provide a reliable supply of air separation products for the smelting process; the project also includes a phased decommissioning of worn-out units. The facility will separate atmospheric air into its primary components, generating pure oxygen, nitrogen, argon, neon-helium mixture and krypton-xenon concentrate.