Gas supplies to Central Asia means reconfiguring gas flows, underground storage in Russia
MOSCOW. Nov 14 (Interfax) - The launch of Russian gas supplies to Uzbekistan through Kazakhstan involves reconfiguring gas flows in the Russian gas transportation system, as well as a changing the load on the underground gas storage system in the country.
Russian gas supplies to Uzbekistan via the Central Asia-Center gas transportation system, which has been switched to reverse mode, began in October. A two-year agreement between JSC UzGaztrade and LLC Gazprom Export envisages exports of 9 million cubic meters per day, or almost 2.8 billion cubic meters per year.
"Taking into account the start of gas supplies to the Central Asian republics, an increase in the load on underground gas storage facilities in the Volga region and Orenburg region is predicted," the CEO of LLC Gazprom UGS, Igor Safonov said in an interview with the gas giant's in-house magazine.
Today, the Kaluzhskoye UGS facility in the Kaluga region, the Elshano-Kurdyumskoye UGS facility in the Saratov region, the Kanchurinsko-Musinsky UGS complex in the Republic of Bashkortostan, as well as the Udmurtsky reserve complex are operating in peak mode, he said.
"The Udmurtsky reserve complex is one of the company's key underground gas storage industry projects. Its development involves the creation of gas storage facilities in four separate geological structures, merged into a single technological complex. The primary task is to ensure reliable gas supply to households and industry in Udmurtia and the entire Nizhnekamsk industrial hub around the cities of Yelabuga, Naberezhnye Chelny and Minnibayevo. At the same time, higher gas consumption by enterprises in Udmurtia and Tatarstan will reduce the environmental load in the region compared with the use of alternative fuels," Safonov said.
Also, the Gazprom Transgaz Surgut LLC in-house publication says that in connection with the launch of gas supplies through Kazakhstan, the gas transmission capacity of the neighboring gas transport company Gazprom Transgaz Yekaterinburg will be partially reoriented to export, while the obligation to meet the needs of the Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk regions largely falls on Surgut. "This winter we will have to increase fuel supplies along the Urengoi Chelyabinsk corridor. The reason for the increase in the load on this trunkline is not only the export of gas to Uzbekistan, but also burgeoning economic development of the Ural region, which has begun to consume more fuel," it says.