Being a good manager, Gazprom always gets ready for winter well in advance. Therefore, “winter” already comes for us when the summer sun starts blazing through the window. In this photo essay we will give you an insight on how preparations for the forthcoming autumn-winter season are coming to an end through the example of our subsidiary company – Gazprom Transgaz Stavropol.

There are various types of gas consumers in southern Russia. For instance, the largest one is a chemical giant – Nevynnomyssky Azot.

Others are smaller in scale, such as the Stavropol State District Power Plant which generates electricity from natural gas.

There are even much smaller, such as a boiler house in the village of Ryzdvyany.

There is also an old lady named Anya from the small settlement of Krasnaya Balka, who doesn’t need fire wood, because the stove in her house is heated with gas.

You certainly know that gas passes thousands of kilometers by long-distance gas pipelines before reaching the consumer. Therefore, it is extremely important for a gas transmission system to be always failsafe and reliable. Photo: overhaul and reinsulation of the Novopskov – Aksai – Mozdok gas pipeline is in full swing.

Gazprom Transgaz Stavropol operates one of the most developed gas infrastructures countrywide in the North Caucasian and Southern Federal Districts. The regional gas transmission system was one of the first built in the national gas industry. Therefore, Stavropol gas workers place high emphasis on capital repair, retrofit and upgrade of gas transmission facilities.

Gas workers are busy day and night to ensure that homes and apartments are warm and cosy, and industrial enterprises, housing & utility infrastructure, hospitals, schools and kindergartens function flawlessly.

Large-scale operations usually engage a lot of structural units from various affiliates of Gazprom Transgaz Stavropol. That is why the concurrence of actions is crucial. Andrey Donets, head of a line pipe maintenance service, is in charge of hot works at a section of the Novopskov – Aksai – Mozdok gas pipeline (professionals call ‘hot works’ any work that involves welding or cutting with the use of fire-producing tools).

A gas pipeline must be in good repair to ensure uninterrupted gas supplies. To this end, regular in-line inspections take place. A special cleaning pig passes through the pipe and collects all the excess particles. Photo: a line pipe maintenance team from the Izobilnenskoye Gas Line Pipe Operation Center receiving the cleaning pig at a section of the Izobilnoye – Nevinnomyssk gas pipeline. 

Here is a flaw detector. It can find the smallest defects in a gas pipeline.

The planned launch of a flaw detector revealed anomalies on a weld at the 3.3 kilometer mark of the Northern Caucasus – Center gas pipeline in the Stavropol Territory. In order to resolve the problem, the gas pipeline was shut down and operations for replacing a defective pipe segment started. Such work is assigned to the most experienced specialists. Photo: electric and gas welder Vladimir Ovsyannikov – this year’s winner of the Best in Profession contest at the Izobilnenskoye Gas Line Pipe Operation Center.