OREANDA-NEWS. August 1, 2007. The Gazeks gas holding company is implementing a programme for shutting down liquefied gas stations in Nizhniye Sergi, Sverdlovsk Region. Almost all town dwellers will switch to natural gas by the start of the next heating season thanks to this programme.

Specialists of CJSC Gazmontazh (a subsidiary of Gazeks, CJSC Integrated Energy Systems, Moscow) have finished the first stage of shutting down liquefied gas stations. At this stage, specialists of the company built over two kilometres of gas pipelines and shut down four liquefied gas plants in house yards. The cost of the project was 5.6 million roubles. By October 2007, CJSC Gazmontazh employees will shut down another three liquefied gas stations. Subscribers from a total of 843 flats will be able to use natural gas. This project has been made possible to implement thanks to CJSC Gazeks's investment. For example, in 2006 Gazmontazh made use of investment (7.9 million roubles) to complete the construction of a gas pipeline and began to establish gas supply to the town and a sanatorium of the same name. 

"We built shutting down liquefied gas stations into the programme for the establishment of gas supply to the town of Nizhnie Sergi from the very beginning," says Denis Pasler, director of the Yekaterinburg branch of the Gazeks holding company. "Liquefied gas is good for remote territories where gas infrastructure is undeveloped. In those municipalities to which gas pipelines have reached, residents should use natural gas. It is after all safer to operate and demands less attention when operating gas distribution systems in winter. These two factors improve the safety of gas supply as a whole."

Nizhnie Sergi is not the only town where Gazeks is implementing a programme for switching residents from liquefied to natural gas. A project for shutting down liquefied gas stations in the town of Artyomovsk is at the stage of completion. This one is more complicated in terms of geological conditions and the greater length of gas pipelines. Accordingly, it demands more investment. Besides, a similar project has begun to be implemented in the settlement of Verkhnyaya Sinyachikha.