Gazprom's storage facilities have reached potential daily deliverability of 801.3 million cubic meters of natural gas, some 11.4 mcm higher year on year.
That was a “record high”, the company said in a statement on its website at the end of October.
The company has currently some 72.098 billion cubic meters of gas reserves in Russia-based underground gas storage (UGS) facilities. With the Armenian and Belarusian UGS facilities factored in, Gazprom’s gas reserves stand at about 73.3 Bcm, it reported.
It added that following a review of readiness of the system for operation at peak load times in the 2016-2017 autumn/winter period, it had concluded its system was geared up to “provide reliable gas supplies to the Russian regions and meet its contractual obligations to consumers abroad.”
It added however that this depended on “the availability of emergency fuel” such as fuel oil and coal “at heat and power generation facilities and major plants, as well as on reasonable gas consumption in the Russian regions.”
Maintenance in the first nine months of 2016 included the overhaul of some 660 km of gas pipelines and 262 gas distribution stations.
Furthermore, the reliability of the Company’s gas production facilities “was achieved through conducting complete repair of 88 comprehensive gas treatment and pre-treatment units by October 2016” it added.
The company is also planning to bring onstream this year a number of booster compressor stations with an aggregate capacity of 336 MW and 130 new development wells, including ones at the Bovanenkovskoye, Urengoyskoye and Yamburgskoye fields, it said.
In Russia, Gazprom operates 22 UGS facilities, which include 26 gas storage reservoirs: 17 in depleted gas fields, eight in aquifers, and one in salt caverns. The company also operates three gas storage facilities in Belarus and one in Armenia.