OREANDA-NEWS.  OJSC KAMAZ and OOO Gazprom gazomotornoe toplivo signed an agreement in the sphere of the use of natural gas as a motor fuel.

Sergey Kogogin, General Director of KAMAZ, and Viktor Zubkov, Chairman of the Gazprom Board of Directors, emphasized two main purposes of cooperation: to produce and promote different vehicles running on natural gas, and also to arrange favourable conditions for the development of the gas sector of the auto industry. The companies plan to jointly work out suggestions for regional and federal authorities to arrange favourable conditions for large-scale introduction of vehicles running on natural gas. Special attention will be paid to work with customers in order to eliminate complaints about gas-engine equipment. Under the signed agreement, it is planned to take joint measures to inform, advertise and popularize the use of natural gas as a motor fuel. Also, the parties intend to organize a system of professional training and retraining of engineers and technicians for maintenance and operation of gas-powered equipment.

According to Sergey Kogogin, General Director of KAMAZ, now it is impossible to successfully develop the gas motor sector single-handed, “Here we need a comprehensive approach – from vehicle producers, Gazprom, and, naturally, from regional authorities. Everybody will do their own business – KAMAZ will produce and service equipment, Gazprom will build filling stations.” The parties specified their duties based on this idea.

Under the signed Agreement, KAMAZ is responsible for organization of NGV production; participates in adaptation of the production and technical base of enterprises using NGVs in accordance with the requirements of the effective normative documents; provides gas-engine vehicles for exhibitions and gives a potential customer – a partner of OOO Gazprom gazomotornoe toplivo – gas-engine vehicles for trial operation. In its turn, Gazprom gazomotornoe toplivo is in charge of filling gas-engine vehicles with compressed natural gas; controls the construction of facilities of the gas motor infrastructure in places of concentration of natural gas equipment and furthers the test operation of gas-motor transport means. Also, the company plans to inform potential customers about KAMAZ’s gas-engine products.

KAMAZ has reached this agreement with a solid store of knowledge in production and sales of gas-engine trucks: the company sold 300 units of compressed gas vehicles last year, and it signed contracts for delivery of more than 1,000 KAMAZ NGVs this year. In spite of the fact that such vehicles are almost 5-10% more expensive than standard ones (with diesel engines), they are repaid more quickly due to a lower cost of gas fuel.