On Alexander Ananenkov and Jurgen Lenz's working meeting
Release
Gazprom’s Headquarters today hosted a working meeting between Alexander Ananenkov, Deputy Chairman of Gazprom’s Management Committee and Dr. Jurgen Lenz, Member of E.ON Ruhrgas AG’s Executive Board.
The meeting addressed the implementation of the memoranda of understanding earlier sealed by the companies. The parties emphasized that, over the past years, Gazprom and E.ON Ruhrgas AG had successfully developed a string of joint pilot projects in the Russian gas industry’s power conservation and environmental protection sectors.
Alexander Ananenkov and Jurgen Lenz expressed their intentions to continue and deepen within 2005 the mutually beneficial technical cooperation fitting with the traditional interests of both firms in the ecology, resource- and power saving and gas transmission optimization sectors. Special emphasis was placed on establishing, improving and using resource- and power conservation technologies for the gas industry. In this regards, the parties agreed to launch the pilot stage of the SIMONE pipeline simulator operation at Volgotransgaz’s facilities. Additionally, expert dispatchers from both companies will be developing over 2005 new conceptions of natural gas pipeline transmission optimization. Other working groups will be dealing with possible gas saving problems.
The meeting also decided to acquaint the community with the progress in the Methane Emission Identification joint project. Alexander Ananenkov and Jurgen Lenz reviewed the German side’s potential involvement in engineering, constructing and operating offshore gas pipelines, producing liquefied natural gas and processing natural gas into synthetic liquid fuel. A decision was adopted to set up a joint expert group in charge of said matters.
Background
Founded in June 2000 through the merger of the two firms VEBA and VIAG, the German company E.ON AG is the world’s largest privately-held Holding with over EUR 46 bln in annual turnover and more than 66 thou people employed.
E.ON Ruhrgas AG (Ruhrgas AG, before 1 July 2004) has been part of the E.ON AG Concern since February 2003 and has overseen the Group’s gas business in Europe, including production, marketing, transmission and storage.
The company counts on a manifold 11,280-km-long gas transmission network comprising 12 underground storage facilities with 5.2 bcm in overall throughput. E.ON Ruhrgas AG is a German leader and is among the top three European firms in natural gas marketing (641.4 bln kW/h).
Gazprom and E.ON Ruhrgas AG laid foundations for cooperation in the early 1970s when Ruhrgas AG together with a handful of German industrial companies and banks got involved in the construction of gas pipelines transiting Russian gas from Siberia to West Europe.
Owning a 6.5% stake in Gazprom, E.ON Ruhrgas AG is its largest foreign shareholder.
Over consecutive years, Gazprom and E.ON Ruhrgas AG have been successfully cooperating in the gas pipeline anticorrosion protection, gas-pumping unit operation optimization, gas dispatching and other directions.
In 2000 (Berlin) and 2002 (Moscow), Gazprom and Ruhrgas AG signed the Memoranda of understanding.
On 8 July 2004, Gazprom and E.ON AG sealed the Memorandum of understanding fixing mutual agreements to deepen successful cooperation when implementing both companies’ strategic projects. In addition to the traditional gas supply business, the parties started implementing joint gas extraction, transmission & marketing and power generation projects.
The SIMONE software package is intended for the on-line simulation and optimization of gas flows in pipeline systems. First tested by Volgotransgaz in 1998, SIMONE has been repeatedly adapted to the peculiarities of Russian gas transmission networks in compliance with the requirements of Gazprom’s Gas Flow Dispatching Department and Volgotransgaz, with multiple additional functions (service ones inclusive) added. After several trial performances initiated on 26 May 2004, Volgotransgaz decided to bring SIMONE into industrial operation.
Information Directorate, OAO Gazprom