Efficiently utilizing associated petroleum gas a priority for Gazprom
RELEASE
Release
The Gazprom Board of Directors approved the Company's activities aimed at boosting the efficiency of associated petroleum gas (APG) utilization in Russia.
The meeting emphasized that increasing APG utilization was one of Gazprom's priorities fully in line with the global trends towards low-carbon and energy-efficient economic development. The Company displays stable growth of this performance indicator. Over the last four years useful APG utilization has increased by 11 per cent up to 70 per cent.
Associated petroleum gas is a valuable resource providing for additional profit through its utilization in power generation, gas processing, gas chemistry and oil production. In addition, it opens up the prospects for mutually beneficial cooperation between Gazprom and independent producers.
The Company established a permanent working group coordinating the interaction of Gazprom with oil companies during the development and subsequent implementation of joint projects aimed at extracting, treating and transporting associated petroleum gas and natural gas from the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area. In cooperation with LUKOIL a project is being developed for processing associated petroleum gas from the Komi Republic at the Sosnogorsk GPP. The Power of Siberia gas trunkline system being built by Gazprom will allow, inter alia, receiving APG from the Irkutsk Region and the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) fields owned by third-party subsurface users.
The state measures regulating APG utilization encourage Russian companies to raise their investments. Useful APG utilization will increase steadily across Russia. For instance, the expected volume of dry stripped gas recovered as a result of APG processing to be fed by independent producers into Gazprom's gas transmission system in 2013 will grow from 20.9 to 22.3 billion cubic meters (6.7 per cent growth versus 2012).
In this context, Gazprom is devising an action plan aimed at synchronizing the efforts with independent APG suppliers in order to boost the efficiency of its utilization.