Today Gazprom began trial gas withdrawal at Karashurskoye underground gas storage (UGS) located in the Udmurt Republic.

Trail gas withdrawals will continue through the summer season to test the surface equipment, adjust the reservoir bed geological profile, and identify effective gas well production rate during gas withdrawals in order to prepare the Karashurskoye UGS facilities for the upcoming autumn and winter season.

Commercial gas withdrawals at Karashurskoye UGS will commence in December 2005. The UGS’ daily output is expected to peak in the autumn and winter season of 2005-2006, and will amount to 5.5 million cubic meters of gas.

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Karashurskoye UGS is the first underground gas storage in the Udmurt group of UGSs. In the future three other underground gas storages will be added to the group, namely Chezhebashevskoye, Severo-Chezhebashevskoye and Novotroitskoye UGSs.

Nominal active capacity of Karashurskoye UGS is 640 million cubic meters of gas, and the design maximum daily capacity is 7.5 million cubic meters of gas. In 2003, Gazprom put this UGS into operation in the injection and storage regime. By the beginning of 2005, a 191 million cubic meters of gas was stored as commercial gas reserve. Gas injection at Karashurskoye UGS will continue after trial withdrawals.

The Russian Federation UGSs will hold 62.6 billion cubic meters of commercial gas reserves by the beginning of the 2005-2006 autumn-winter gas withdrawal season, and their maximum daily capacity will reach 568 million cubic meters of gas.

Gazprom’s UGSs system is comprised of 24 gas storage facilities installed in water bearing formations and depleted gas and gas condensate fields.

The UGSs system allows to balance seasonal gas consumption fluctuations, and to supply a number of Russia’s regions with natural gas during the winter season solely from UGSs.

Gazprom plans to increase underground storages’ throughput capacity by means of overhauling and expanding the existing UGSs system, as well as installing new gas storage facilities.

The Russian Federation annual UGSs system’s commercial gas reserves dynamics:

· 1998 – 45 billion cubic meters;

· 2004 – 62.5 billion cubic meters;

· 2010 (forecast) – 82 billion cubic meters.

The Russian Federation UGSs system’s design maximum daily throughput capacity is estimated to reach 700 million cubic meters of gas by 2010.

DIVISION OF RELATIONS WITH MASS MEDIA