OREANDA-NEWS. Today, the town of Surgut has hosted the Gazprom’s industry meeting for gas transmission system (GTS) upgrading.

The meeting particularly emphasized that GTS upgrading was a crucial business of Gazprom. Only within the 2007-10 Comprehensive Debottlenecking Program for Gas Transmission Facilities and UGS Compressor Stations about 500 gas pumping units will be upgraded and replaced, 5,000 km of pipelines and 324 gas distribution stations will be reconstructed.

This will enable to increase the annual through put capacity of the gas main system by 32 bcm and to simultaneously save 3.5 bcm per year during the transmission process.

The 2007-2010 period is planned to see a three fold reduction of the total gas pipeline length due to a lower operating pressure versus the initial design.