Over the past few decades, a gas industry of the mature economies has become one of the most technically advanced branches. Implementation of the high technologies has made it a leader of the global market. Nowadays, the rapid growth and quick facility startups are the necessary conditions for enlargement of production and consumption of the gaseous fuels. At that, priority development of the gas transportation systems is a driver of branch perfection.
The Gazprom PJSC possesses the biggest Unified Gas Supply System in the world, which is a unique technological complex consisting of the facilities for gas production, transportation, dispatching, storage, treatment and processing. Using this system, we provide continuous gas supply from a well to a final consumer. Thanks to concurrent commissioning of two new export gas pipelines, such as the Turkish Stream and the Power of Siberia, The Gazprom PJSC has increased the export potential of Russia: we have reached the new horizons of gas supply reliability and have signed the long-term strategic agreements with the People’s Republic of China at the eastern direction. The Ust-Luga project aimed at transportation and processing of multicomponent ethane-containing gas has been also launched.
Technological development of the Gazprom PJSC is impossible free from application of the state-of-art engineering and informational novels. All the Gazprom’s megaprojects concerned with building and operation of trunk pipelines are being realized by reference to the principles of technical feasibility and implementation of new materials, technologies and equipment able to provide necessary reliability, safety, efficiency and environmental protection at all stages of a facility life cycle. Most of such novelties are being created with participation of the Gazprom VNIIGAZ specialists.
The current agenda is focused on efficient exploiting of the gas pipelines built in the second half of the XX century, and a key task here resolves into rational allocation of finances for technical diagnostics and repair of these pipelines. In far 1950s, the domestic fuel balance has begun to be reformed: lignum fossil and coal have been replaced with the pipeline gas. In 1970s-1980s, terrestrial expanse of the gas industry has enlarged due to Western Siberia and Middle Asia and the large-diameter transit gas pipelines, namely: Bukhara-Urals, Middle Asia – Center, Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod, Yamburg – the western state borders of the USSR, etc. These pipelines extended for 3…4,5 thousands kilometers long. At that, their routes have run within the aggressive soils crossing long water barriers and rocks. At that time, prompt implementation of new engineering solutions was needed; so, few mistakes have been made, in particular the faulty usage of the field-applied belt-type Polyken coating. Today, the Polyken-sealed sections of the pipelines especially hard suffer from corrosion and stress-corrosion cracking, which constitute 80 % of pipe defects. Due to these reasons, scientific studies on physical-chemical modelling and mathematical description of corrosive processes are topical now, as well as design of the computer-based systems for gas transition control, implementation of the state-of-art fracture mechanics and probabilistic models to assess reliability of pipelines and equipment, creation of low-cost repair techniques for rehabilitation of the pipelines with durable life cycle, improvement of gas compressors and gas distributors and underground gas storages.
This collected book is a prospect of the state-of-art views on current and strategic tasks in controlling technical status and integrity of gas transportation systems and support of their safe operation. It consists of 21 articles highlighting the research leads, new materials and techniques, perfection and optimization of technical and administrative management. Mostly, these materials have been manifested first at the VIII International Conference “Gas Transportation Systems: Present and Future” (GTS-2019), which has taken place in the Gazprom VNIIGAZ LLC backed by the Minenergo of Russia, the Minobrnauki of Russia, and the Russian Gas Society. The GTS-2019 participants represented the Gazprom Group companies, pipe-rolling plants, manufacturers of materials, vendors of the repair, diagnostic and IT equipment, and educational institutions.
Revealed information could be interesting for wide range of researches and practitioners employed in petroleum, chemical and metallurgic industries. It will be also useful for students and postgraduates from correspondent universities (inter alia these materials will be good for compilation of career progression programs).
Deputy general director of the Gazprom VNIIGAZ LLC for science, chairman of the Gazprom VNIIGAZ LLC Academic Board section for gas transportation and storage, candidate of engineering R.R. Kantyukov
