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!
