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Gazprom Urged to Revise General Plan
RF Industry and Energy Ministry keeps prodding Gazprom to revise the General Plan for Gas Industry Development till 2030 in view of constructing new gas-main pipelines for new energy facilities. It is yet unclear what changes the gas monopoly is ready to introduce, but one thing is known for certain. Gazprom won’t come up with a new draft by June 1 deadline set by the ministry. It blames the delay on energy producers that haven’t completed their own general plan yet.
Industry and Energy Ministry needs a new draft by late May, said Vyacheslav Kravchenko, chief of the natural monopolies’ structural and tariff policy department at the ministry. The presented program, Kravchenko explained, was sent for elaboration, as it specified too many options.
Indeed, the General Plan for Gas Industry Development till 2030, which draft is available to Kommersant, sets fourth 18 choices and the ministry urged Gazprom to leave no more than three or four of them “adjusting the volume of gas supplies to energy output of the power plans.”
The conflict of two giants – Gazprom and RAO UES of Russia – has been no secret since past September. It emerged during the meeting held by Sergey Sobyanin, chief of president’s administration, and dedicated to fuel balance of Russia’s power engineering. In RAO UES, they used to informally fault Gazprom for refusal to sell gas to them even at market prices, saying the gas monopoly viewed exports contracts much more advantageous.
RAO UES first drew attention to the energy shortage past fall and forecasted it to increase. Gazprom fired off by denying the lack of gas in Russia’s power engineering and accused RAO UES of inability to match the consumption of gas and black oil.
Basically, Gazprom has never refused to shape a new general plan but it won’t meet the deadline of Industry and Energy Ministry. “On the one hand, the plan should be made out till the end of May,” Gazprom representatives explained. “On the other hand, it should be linked to the general plan of stationing energy facilities, which draft the power engineering companies will elaborate later. So, it is too difficult to speak about the dates of our work.” Of interest is that in Gazprom, they avoid specifying how drastically they are ready to amend the document to meet requirements of RAO UES.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of May 08, 2007
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