OREANDA-NEWS. September 23, 2009. Ufa hosted the opening of the 19th Annual International Congress “Innovative Technologies in the Oil, Gas, Energy and Communication Sectors” (CITOGIC 2009).

Gazprom’s delegation led by Alexander Ananenkov, Deputy Chairman of the Company’s Management Committee, is taking part in the Congress. The delegation was composed of Oleg Aksyutin, Head of the Gas Transportation, Underground Storage and Utilization Department, heads and experts from the Company’s specialized subdivisions and subsidiaries.

Delivering his speech at the plenary meeting, Alexander Ananenkov noted that the governmentally approved Russia’s draft Energy Strategy until 2030 identified the formation of the national innovative system for the supply of Russia’s fuel and energy complex with highly efficient domestic technologies, sci-tech solutions and equipment as a strategic goal of the state energy policy.

Over the past decade Russia has moved forward in sci-tech cooperation between the science and energy businesses, reinstatement of staff training centers and in some other areas of sci-tech development.

At the same time, Russia’s fuel and energy companies remain highly dependent on foreign technologies and equipment. Today Russia lacks an integral system of interaction between the science and the business to meet the energy sector’s demand for sci-tech achievements and to develop the competitive domestic market of sci-tech services. The fuel and energy industries still don’t have a well-developed innovative infrastructure.

To resolve these problems in Russia, it is necessary to upgrade the experimental base and the sci-tech information system, to retain and develop the human resources, to integrate the science, education and innovative activity, as well as to enhance Russia’s sci-tech cooperation with other countries.

Adequate development of the Russian gas industry is impossible if these challenges are not met. Over the next decades the competitiveness of the gas industry products on the global market will largely depend on the advancements to be made by the domestic science and industry in a variety of fields.

This, first of all, includes more effective technologies of LNG production in the promising gas production areas – Yamal, Eastern Siberia, Yakutia and offshore Arctic Seas.

It is necessary to elaborate new technologies of pipeline gas transmission, as well as new approaches and technical solutions in gas pipeline maintenance and repair.

Another crucial task for the Russian science is formation of domestic technologies for the Arctic hydrocarbon resources development. The total potential of recoverable in-place hydrocarbon resources in Russia’s offshore zone is estimated to exceed 70 billion tons of oil equivalent including 15.6 billion tons of oil and condensate and 83.4 trillion cubic meters of gas. However, there are no available domestic technologies or domestic equipment so far to develop these resources, such as, for instance, gas hydrates.

Moreover, “In addition to the production technologies, the domestic fuel and energy complex requires streamlining the management technologies for investment projects and engineering processes. So far, this process in Russia is extremely long-lasting and capital-intensive. The techniques and approaches of the past century are applied too frequently,” emphasized Alexander Ananenkov.

The 19th Annual International Congress “Innovative High Technologies in the Oil, Gas, Energy and Communication Sectors” will last until September 24.