Today Alexander Ananenkov, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee held in the Company’s Headquarters a meeting dedicated to the criteria of technical and technological engineering in order to enhance the reliability and efficiency of underground gas storage (UGS) facilities in Russia.

Taking part in the meeting were Oleg Aksyutin, Member of the Management Committee – Head of the Gas Transportation, Underground Storage and Utilization Department, heads and experts from the Gazprom Administration specialized subdivisions, VNIPIgazdobycha, Gazprom VNIIGAZ, Gazprom UGS and Podzemburgaz.

Opening the meeting Alexander Ananenkov emphasized that development of new approaches to technical and technological engineering of UGS facilities would enhance reliability of storages as part of the Unified Gas Supply System and reduce construction and retrofitting costs.

The meeting participants discussed the issues related to UGS upgrading. An emphasis was placed on the projects for UGS construction and operation to be elaborated by research institutes with due regard to various technical and technological specifics, as well as on the comprehensive measures to be taken to increase the daily send-out capacity of storages. In this respect, the meeting noted that it was important to improve the criteria of efficient formation energy utilization.

Based on the meeting results, Gazprom’s subdivisions and subsidiary companies were entrusted with the tasks aimed at raising the technological level of Russian UGS facilities.

Background:

There are currently 25 UGS facilities operational in the Russian Federation with the commercial gas volume of 64 billion cubic meters, the peak daily send-out capacity of 620 million cubic meters as of the 2009–2010 autumn–winter period start-up, and the daily average send-out capacity of 500 million cubic meters in December–February.

Moreover, Gazprom stores gas in UGS facilities in Latvia, Germany, Austria and the UK.

Gazprom holds shares in the companies owning and operating UGS facilities, namely ArmRosGazprom (Armenia), Latvijas Gaze (Latvia), WINGAS GmbH (Germany), and VNG AG (Germany).

The Gazprom UGS Development Strategy up to 2030 hinges on the following basic principles:

- maintaining the achieved level of Russian UGS capacities by upgrading and replacing obsolete and depreciated capacities;

- accelerated building up Russia’s UGS daily send-out capacity by expanding the existing UGS facilities and building the new ones;

- providing UGS capacities for undersupplied regions of the Russian Federation;

- developing at best the UGS system along with UGSS, synchronizing UGS facility and gas trunkline operation regimes;

- expanding the UGS network abroad to store Gazprom’s gas for higher reliability and flexibility of gas exports, expanding the Company’s presence on the spot market.