Gazprom intends to invest in gas motor fuel expansion
NIZHNY NOVGOROD. Sept 28 (Interfax) - Gazprom intends to invest in the development in regions with gas motor fuel infrastructure and plans in those regions to expand gas-motor equipment, head of OJSC Gazprom Gazenergoset Anatoly Kim said at a roundtable meeting during a business summit in Nizhny Novgorod.
"Gasification such as this and gasification of transport are now considered together. If a region is not developing its gas-motor fleet, then Gazprom will not be putting money into the construction of automobile gas-filling compressor stations in that region," Kim said.
Kim said active action is expected from regional authorities in the acquisition of vehicles running on compressed natural gas (CNG), or the transformation of the current fleet.
Executive Director at OJSC Russian Machines for the CNG project development Pyotr Zolotarev said that producers of gas-powered automobiles are restrained by a lack of infrastructure for using them.
Zolotarev said he thinks that the development of the Russian market for gas-powered vehicles has to be synchronized with the operations of oil and gas companies and automobile producers "for the promotion of product." "Motorists are faced with infrastructure problems. We, along with oil and gas companies, have to resolve the problem of advancing product. Forces need to be united with colleagues from the oil and gas sector," he said.
"Local projects have to be developed, creating a fleet of 300-400 vehicles in a certain region with the synchronous building of [gas-filling compressor stations]. At this point, the federal programs for subsidies to region for the purchase of gas-powered buses involves quotas in a wide number of regions," he said.
The deputy director of Nizhny Novgorod Region's transportation department, Alexander Lobayev, told the roundtable attendees that, for example, the quota for this region in 2012 under the subsidy program is fourteen buses. The entire program is 3.5 billion rubles, and the federation earmarks 2.5 million rubles for each vehicle.
Nizhny Novgorod Region's LLC Mikrometan S produces mini automobile gas-filling compressor stations. Its Director Alexei Bursikov expressed the view that gas-motor infrastructure could develop with the efforts of small business, but that is obstructed by the absence of a standards base, strict fire safety requirements, and the so-called problem of 'access to the pipe.' He said Mikrometan S has in three years sold private business 44 mini automobile gas-filling compressor stations, and can produce 50 of them annually.
Gazprom Gazenergoset figures indicate that there in Russia 1.4 million vehicles powered by compressed hydrocarbon gas and 86,000 running on CNG.
There are 249 automobile gas-filling compressor stations in Russia, 208 of them owned by Gazprom. In 2011, those stations sold 361.6 million cubic meters of CNG, 16.6 million cubic meters more than in 2010, but representing only 18% what they could have. The largest of the developed regional markets at the end of 2011 were Stavropol and Krasnodar Territories, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, Rostov, and Tula Regions, and the Republic of Bashkortostan; these accounted for 52.1% of the CNG sold in Russia.
