The city of Yekaterinburg has hosted the 17th International Business Meeting “Diagnostics-2007”. The Meeting was co-sponsored by Gazprom and its subsidiary Orgenergogaz. 197 representatives from 15 Russian and foreign countries participated in its work.

Bogdan Budzulyak, Member of the Gazprom Management Committee, Co-Chairman of Organizing Committee on 17th International Business Meeting “Diagnostics-2007”, has delivered a report at the Meeting. He said that currently the scope of inline inspection annually performed by Gazprom was 15-20 thousand km, represented an optimal solution for the Unified Gas Supply System of Russia.

The reporter specified a significant progress of gas transmission diagnostic methods and technologies. Particularly, he mentioned in-tube defectoscopes with bypass devices, external automated scanner-defectoscopes applied for gas pipeline inspection within the re-isolation process. Bogdan Budzulyak underscored that the major issue was to develop in-tube defectiscopic technologies for long offshore pipelines.

“Gas pipeline damage rate significantly decreased due to capital repair, re-isolation, reconstruction and diagnostics. Technical maintenance of gas transmission system enables to provide uninterrupted gas supply to Russian and foreign consumers,” said Bogdan Budzulyak.

Within the visit, Bogdan Budzulyak conducted a meeting with Uralmash-Drilling Equipment top management. The meeting examined the contract implementation issues on drilling unit deliveries to develop the Bovanenkovskoye field.

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First held in 1991 in the city of Yalta, the International Business Meetings dedicated to the gas industry infrastructure diagnostics are conducted on a yearly basis for top executives and experts of oil and gas companies, researchers and inspection tool developers & producers.

The annual International Business Meetings are primarily targeted at:

• developing the services market, methodologies and equipment for gas industry infrastructure diagnostics;
• colligating the gas industry experience of applying various inspection methods, tools and systems;
• identifying the most promising areas of cooperation when performing diagnostics of gas industry equipment and facilities; developing ties with international counterparts inclusive;
• detecting the origination of gas equipment defects.

Founded back in 1971, Gazprom’s subsidiary Orgenergogaz specializes in pipeline inspection, repair and maintenance. Earlier, the company’s specialists were engaged in designing and commissioning of the pipelines “Soyuz”, “Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod”, Yamal-Europe”, “Blue Stream”, “Zapolyarnoye-Urengoy”, worked at oil and gas industry facilities in Algeria, Libya, Iraq, Poland, Bulgaria and other countries.

In April 2007 Uralmash-Drilling Equipment (machine building subsidiary of Integra Group) and Gazcomplektimpex (a wholly owned subsidiary of Gazprom) signed a contract to produce heavy drilling units to be supplied for Gazprom needs.