On 14 October 2004 a meeting of the Coordinating Council on Stress-Corrosion was held. The meeting was presided by Bogdan Budzulyak, Member of the Management Committee of Gazprom, Head of the Department of Natural Gas Transmission, Underground Storage and Utilization. Problems of stress-corrosion on trunk gas pipelines were discussed.

Representatives of Gazprom administration, its subsidiaries, state regulation authorities, research institutions, E.On Ruhrgas AG were present at the meeting.

The implementation of the Integrated program on Creation of means and methods of technical diagnostics and repair of gas pipelines prone to stress-corrosion for 2002-2004 was discussed.

The meeting's participants reviewed a number of issues related to reliability, technical diagnostics and repair of trunk gas pipelines prone to stress-corrosion; defined the perspectives of using experimental parts of trunk gas pipelines for researching stress-corrosion; worked out decisions on creation of stress corrosion parameters control and diagnostics equipment. During the meeting, the experience of tests conducted on pipes affected by stress-corrosion at Severgazprom's test ground was shared, and the results of technical diagnostics and repair of Tymentransgaz's gas pipelines under stress-corrosion were presented at the meeting.

The representatives of research institutions reported to the meeting's participants on the development and test results of equipment for stress-corrosion detection and detection of sections with broken isolation in operating trunk gas pipelines.

Since the existing program expired, it was decided to work out a new Integrated program on research of stress-corrosion, creation of means and methods of technical diagnostics, repair and protection of gas pipelines prone to stress-corrosion for 2005-2007.

DIVISION OF RELATIONS WITH MASS MEDIA