Today in the town of Volzhsky (Volgograd Oblast) in accordance with the instruction of Viktor Zubkov, First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation and Chairman of the Gazprom Board of Directors, Gazprom and Volga Bus entered into an Agreement on the use of natural gas as a motor fuel. The document was signed by Valery Golubev, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Alexey Bakulin, Director General of Volga Bus.

According to the Agreement, the main objectives of the cooperation between Gazprom and Volga Bus are the creation and implementation of a full range of modern natural gas powered buses as well as the formation of a favorable environment for developing the natural gas vehicle market in Russia. In addition, the parties agreed to jointly elaborate the relevant proposals for the federal and regional authorities.

According to the document, Volga Bus will organize the production of CNG buses, the service infrastructure, and the system of professional training and retraining of maintenance staff. The company will also coordinate the conversion of the production and technical base of organizations that purchase gas powered buses.

In its turn, Gazprom will arrange the construction of CNG infrastructure facilities in the areas where passenger vehicles are located in a space-saving manner and will organize testing of gas powered buses on the basis of the Company's subsidiaries. Acquiring buses for these companies, Gazprom will consider possibilities to buy the CNG buses manufactured by Volga Bus.

Background

The Russian fleet of natural gas vehicles amounts to some 86 thousand units. At present, there are 249 CNG filling stations (207 of them are owned by Gazprom) in 58 regions of the Russian Federation. Besides, a new CNG filling station is currently being built in the Kaliningrad Oblast. 345 million cubic meters of compressed natural gas were sold by Russian CNG filling stations in 2010.

Gazprom signed the Agreements of Cooperation with the Kaluga, Orel and Tambov Oblasts to use gas as a motor fuel. The Tomsk, Kostroma and Volgograd Oblasts endorsed the regional legal acts aimed at development of their local CNG markets.

Nowadays, there are 10 CNG filling stations with the total maximum capacity of 50 million cubic meters of gas per year in the Volgograd Oblast. These stations are capable of refueling some 2.3 thousand CNG vehicles per day. At present, there are approximately 600 gas powered vehicles in the region.

Volga Bus is one of the leading bus manufactures in Russia.

In 2003, 2005, 2008, 2009 (twice), 2010 and 2011 the title of the Best Domestic Bus was awarded to the Volga Bus products.

The scientific center of the company is active in research on the promising areas of mechanical engineering, including the gas powered engines development.