M.M. Kasyanov, Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation, made a scheduled field trip of Krasnodar Territory to survey on site the course of construction of gas pipeline Russia – Turkey "Goluboi Potok" (the Blue Stream).
Wednesday, October 17, 2001
M.M. Kasyanov, Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation, made a scheduled field trip of Krasnodar Territory to survey on site the course of construction of gas pipeline Russia – Turkey "Goluboi Potok" (the Blue Stream). In this tour the Prime Minister was accompanied by I.H. Yousoufov, Minister of Power Engineering of the Russian Federation, A.B. Miller, Chairman of the Board of the JSC "Gazprom", officials of the administration of the Government of the Russian Federation, the JSC "Gazprom" Board members as well as A.Ya. Bekker, President of the general contractor and Directors of contractor organizations involved in implementing the project. This project is the focus of special attention since it is unique in world practice both from the technological and economic viewpoint. M.M Kasyanov stated: "This one is a nation-scale project and even exceeds the limits of it as such. It is of political importance and thus is controlled by the President. By 2008, the supply of gas to Turkey should amount to 16 billion cubic meters per year. Already next year we should reach the index of 2 billion cubic meters". He stressed that the Government gave considerable prominence to the buildup of the resource base in order to meet the domestic demand and fulfill the export supplies. A significant step forward in this respect is bringing into operation the 1st production complex with the capacity of 35 billion cubic meters of gas annually at one of the world-biggest gas-condensate fields – Zapolyarnoye. It is just the place where the "blue fuel" will be supplied to Turkey from. "Bringing into operation the field is of great importance both for the domestic consumers and for our foreign partners. Their demand in gas will be met fully", - assured M.M. Kasyanov. The Premier made a fly-around of the gas pipeline route and visited a deep-sea pipe-layer ship "Sypem 7000", got acquainted with the gas pipeline laying technology. Head of Government held a meeting with the administration of the territory where the urgent issues of building the Russian section of the gas pipeline were discussed. Speaking at the meeting, Yu.M. Basaryguin, Director-General of "Kubangazprom" Ltd. and representative of the customer, noted the concentration of significant construction capacities of the general contractor, the JSC "Stroitransgaz" and its sub-contractor companies in the operations area. The customer also has all the required resources sufficient to perform the mission of completing the operations within the section from 56 to 370 kilometers in the 3rd quarter of 2002. However, the most serious obstacle is non-availability of pipes with the diameter of 1420 mm, the supplier is the Italian concern "Ilvo". By the time of the meeting, the concern was behind the supply schedule by 40000 tons.
