South Stream gas pipeline construction started up

Ruslan Goryukhin, Chief Executive Officer of LLC «SGM», told to “Komsomolskaya Pravda” about his company participation in construction works for South Stream Project and other projects.

— Mr. Goryukhin, first joint of gas pipeline was welded within ceremonial event. Was the welders chosen according to some achievements?
— The best welders were chosen. Alexander Toporkov, the Head of the Welding team, has fifth category and works as a welder for more than 10 years. He took part in many well known facilities such as, without limitation, compressor stations and atomic power station.
Generally speaking nowadays almost all welding operations are done by automatic units. But we had an intention to make the event more specific and human, that’s why the first joint of gas pipeline was welded by the highest professionals.
— The event was organized within the Russkaya compressor station site. This station for the moment is just the working site, construction camp, reloading area and storage facilities. When construction works for this station will be completed and if it would differ from the other stations that were erected by your company?
— The works for Russkaya compressor station will be finished in 2016. This station will be the most powerful one in the world. It is specific one not only for its scale but also for domestic equipment that will be used there. Such equipment is produced by REP Holding CJSC based on the Italian technology. On the current moment this equipment is the best equipment that we can compare by quality and reliability with one installed at Portovaya compressor station used for Nord Stream. Gas is pumped there through the Baltic sea with gas-pumping units of Rolls-Royce and here we will use Ladoga gas-pumping units with the capacity of 32 MW. These GPUs are produced by Russian plant so the process of their installation and maintenance will be easier comparing with the GPUs, manufactured by foreign companies.
— What will be the length of gas pipeline section that is for construction by your company within the Project?
— We were awarded for construction of two sections of pipeline that is 421 km long in total and two compressor stations. Accordingly exactly these facilities will be constructed by us and after that we’ll try to be awarded for the other bids concerning the other onshore sections (that is near 2 000 km of gas pipeline) and other compressor stations to be erected within Russian Federation.
— If this time working conditions are more simple than during the execution of Sakhalin Project?
— If we take a geographical aspect then the Project will be more simple for sure. It is because South Stream Project doesn’t cover such long route as we had for Sakhalin — Khabarovsk — Vladivostok gas pipeline. If we had some failures there then two or three weeks had to be spent in ride to repair it over such territories as sopka, swamp and taiga, where it’s hard to find not only the equipment but the people. It is possible to say that such gas pipeline was constructed based on field engineering principle, when designing engineers were just several steps ahead us.
I hope that here we will not change anything in the Project. Although, as everybody knows, every single area in Krasnodar Territory is the private property that is hard to take out from residents.
— «STROYGAZMONTAZH» Company was established just 5 years ago but able to implement the most complex projects. What make it possible to win correspondent bids?
— As a matter of fact our company was established not on the zero ground but on the basis of the companies with 30 — 40 years of experience. For staff working there succession approach is applied. And by the way this is very important to have the team that is ready to work and has its own traditions and internal rules. It is much easier to work at complex projects having ready to work teams with more than 40 years of experience. That is the reason for OAO Gazprom to trust our company.
— Do you spread the experience gained within the company?
— First of all we have definite Institutes for skills development. And then it’s obvious that our staff share their knowledge working within one construction project. Engineers that have been working at any route for many years and understand how to make the work in a better way transfer their knowledge from one construction facility to another one and share their knowledge with their colleagues. Our team consists of 17 000 people and 10–15 percent of them are engineers. Moreover without hesitation we consult with other experienced people that are working directly at place, we accumulate our and their knowledge, arrange workshops, skills development courses and as a result we have synergistic effect.
It’s just seems so that it is easy to construct any gas pipeline — laid it down, dumped and that’s all. But in reality each section of it has some specific features. Within South Stream Project we have to lay 46 km of pipeline through rice paddy fields. After laying down the rice have to be grown as before and many people will not even know that there is a pipe in the ground.
Somewhere gas pipeline passes through spawning area as in Far East region. In Sochi City pipeline was laid there under mountain range and we have to make it so not to disturb anyone. No doubt to achieve this we need to use the experience of such personal that made it before and these people assigned for leading project positions by us.
— When the construction of gas pipelines or infrastructure starts then the ecologists at the same time raise an uproar. Your company became an award winner of «100 Best Companies of Russia. Ecology and Environmental Management» contest because your construction techniques are the most environmentally safe.
— We didn’t break any environmental rules. During the construction of Dzhubga — Lazarevskoye — Sochi gas pipeline we were under very strict control because there was a natural reserve from one side and residential area from the other side. We had to be very careful not to disturb the ecosystem and residents. Nobody likes when under your territory somebody make some drilling works. But we could find the optimal solution and made no harm to wildlife and residents while laying the pipeline down. The ecologists followed our every step willing to control that we cut out nothing prohibited, made no flooding and harm to the nature.
At every our site we have an environmental monitoring service. Such specialists look for correct dispose of logging residues, control works to be done within defined territory limits, control the deployment of equipment on the prescribed place and so on. And when independent control service comes with the inspection, we already know that our internal service has been checked everything. We don’t break any environmental standards and for this reason nobody make any claims. This is one of the factors that allow us to win the bids.
— As «STROYGAZMONTAZH» Company so often become a bid winner, it is frequently called as General Contractor of Gazprom. Do you feel tough competition in Oil & Gas industry?
— Yes, we feel it. Main contractor of Gazprom is Stroygazconsulting LLC that at the moment is executing the largest scope of work in the sphere of Oil & Gas construction. PJSC «Stroytransgaz» returned to the market and nowadays makes construction works for compressor station within South Stream Project and Bovanenkovo — Ukhta gas pipeline section. Why do «STROYGAZMONTAZH» become bid winner so often? That is because there are just few companies that have the same scale and resources — scientific, engineering, technical and human. For example, during the designing stage of Sakhalin Project the construction works had to be fulfilled with a quick rate. And such contractors that can be mobilized, able to move to the site and start works in a shortest time I just called, they were two and now they are three.
It is obvious that there are plenty of small-scaled contractors that we also compete with and such companies win the bids too. We are represented just in a frame of capital construction within large length gas pipelines projects. There are gas pipelines overhaul works and LP gas pipelines, where struggling between companies is huge and it’s hard for our company to compete there as our company is large-scaled one. But small-scaled companies can win the bids suggesting the low price. In general we compete on the open market when the bid conditions are transparent.
— And what about the competition concerning workforce? If the competitor would suggest your worker better conditions will he then change his working place?
— It can happen from theoretical point of view. But we struggle with high personnel turnover in a simple way. Every our worker knows that he has a firm salary and work. And good work is remunerated by premium, bonuses, some extras, Northen hardship pay, pay for the complexity and other prescribed payments. Moreover people have the chance to develop their career. I can take many examples when low rank worker after he has got the university education become an engineer or the leader at some level. Who wants to grow can grow and do it. That’s why we have no serious turnover of the personnel: 90% of the staff is fixed and move from one construction site to the other.
— How many people will be engaged in the South Stream Project and what scope of work has the company for the current day?
— That is approximately 8 000 people from 17 000 that we have. Other staff make works at Bovanenkovo — Ukhta gas pipeline, on Ukhta — Torzhok gas pipeline within the first string and at Kirinsky OPF (Sakhalin region).
Several bids will be announced during the next year for the second stage of Ukhta — Torzhok gas pipeline, Chayandinskoye field Project. Just before coming here we were discussing the possibility of our participation in the construction of Bulgarian Section of South Stream Project. Recently it was calculated that the length of the pipe we welded enough to rap the Earth along the equator. This year we intend to finish works at four gas pipelines and 17 compressor stations. No one company ever fulfilled such scope of work at the same time!