Timely structural reforms introduced in the gas sector of the republic in accordance with the relevant order of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and aimed at improving of gas supply efficiency in Azerigaz PU system enabled to create a single control system. The passed period proved that a flexible state organization, represented by Azerigaz PU, capable of promptly addressing and eliminating available problems has been created.
Structural reforms implemented by Azerigaz PU have promoted acceleration of modernization and reconstruction in the gas sector. Along with it, Azerigaz PU, supported by the country’s leading company SOCAR, has established its own material-technical base. Azerigaz PU has currently been supplying its structural divisions (regional gas-operating departments) with necessary facilities and modern equipment.
According to the 2005-2015 State Program on development of the fuel-energy complex of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the 2014-2018 State Program of social-economic development of the regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the 2014-2016 State program on social-economic development of the City of Baku and its settlements, the high-skilled specialists of the Union prepared a 2014-2018 plan on gas supplies and modernization of gas sector. All structural subdivisions of Azerigaz PU have been mobilized to perform operations, related to these documents. A number of the program related operations have already been performed.
As in previous years, over 3 months of this year particular importance was attached to ensuring uninterrupted, high quality and safe gas supply to the population and commercial facilities, provision of gas supply of residential settlements, resuming of gas supply and conduction of overhaul repair in the gas supply network. Broad-scale operations on provision and resuming of gas supply were performed first. This work was carried out in all the regions. Moreover, the range of operations on provision and resuming of gas supply was much broader compared to that of the past years. As a result, noteworthy is provision of gas supply to 18 residential areas of Agstafa, Astara, Fizuli, Agjabedi, Aghsu, Jalilabad, Ismayilli, Yevlakh, Tartar, Barda, Shamakhy, Lankaran, Shabran and Zagatala regions during Q1 of this year. Owing to measures undertaken with the purpose to supply consumers with continuous and qualitative natural gas, and expand the subscriber’s base, the number of subscribers supplied with gas within the country reached 1,752,660 as of April 1, 2015. 22,863 out of the total number of subscribers registered, as of April 1, 2015, are included into the non-population category. In general, out of 1,729,797 subscribers registered as of April 1, 2015, some 19,862 were registered in Q1 of this year and account for the population category. 10,538 of them were registered in Baku, Absheron and Sumgayit. The other 9,324 were registered in the regions of the country. The quantity of subscribers increased due to the operations on provision and resuming of gas supply to residential areas, performed this year. According to the population category information dated April 1, 2015, 123,152 families of internal refugees have continuous gas supply. Besides, 315 of mosques and religious temples were supplied with a certain fixed volume of free gas.
All relevant measures have been undertaken to prevent possible occurrence of technical problems associated with the increase of payment operations and coverage of smart-meter users.
Requests of legal and physical entities were considered within the first quarter of this year. As a result, 131 multi-storied buildings were supplied with gas in accordance with submitted documents. In general, these operations cover 2,947 apartments.
As a structure engaged in gas sale, the Union is interested in providing gas supply to high-rise buildings within the shortest possible period of time in case they provide necessary documents meeting the relevant normative-technical and safety standards. One of the tasks that the Union pursues is to ensure gas supply to consumers in continuous and standard mode. The situation with payment of bills for consumed gas can be called favorable. Thus, a total of 1,160,845,945 cubic meters of gas were sold to the population in Q1 2015, which is 89,629,440 cubic meters higher than the figures of the corresponding period of 2014. Gas sale fund-raising has totaled 91.1% over this period. To reduce the loss of natural gas, mechanical meters with expired term of operation are replaced with new smart-meters. Invalid gas regulators are replaced with new ones as well. For instance, in March 2015, gas operating departments laid different diameter gas pipelines with the total length of 24,593km, installed 104 gas regulating units and 49 different diameter shelves in order to improve gas supply of the population. In general, new gas pipelines with the total length of 10,0485m, 361 gas regulators and 137 different diameter shelves were laid and installed in the first quarter respectively. It is noteworthy that new gas pipelines with the total length of 2062.2 km were laid during January-March 2015 in order to increase gas transportation capacity of the network. Besides, gas pipelines with the total length of 221.2km underwent capital repair, which is to ensure safe and continuous operation of the network.
Azerigaz PU has been also undertaking measures aimed at reduction of process losses of gas. Measurement facilities installed on gas custody transfer points undergo reconstruction as their service life expired and did not meet the requirements of the normative-technical documentation. Works on replacement of worn-out and obsolete meters, installed on gas custody transfer points of the Union network, with new ones are currently underway. Apart from this, internal measurement facilities of the Union are being reconstructed as well. It is also possible to store (online) the chemical parameters of transferred and received natural gas in the memory of flow meters. Installation of new measurement facilities on gas custody transfer points, new flowmeters and analyzers of physicochemical indicators of gas at measurement facilities, meeting modern standards, enables to reduce gas losses.
As a part of the project on reconstruction of the gas supply system of Baku city and Absheron peninsula, the work on creation of the special e-data base software (e-maps for certain districts) of medium and high-pressure gas network was carried out in 2010 and in the first quarter of 2015. E-data base controls gas network online, provides network information on spot, ensures error-free performance of emergency and repair operations and has irreplaceable capabilities from this standpoint. This base is important since it ensures timely prevention of gas loss, provides qualitative services to subscribers and creates conditions for prediction and proper regulation of gas supply.
Meanwhile, measures aimed at prevention of violation of gas consumption instructions are taken. The Union drew up reports on violation of gas consumption rules within 3 months of this year. Of this total, 865 reports fell to the share of the population, while 14 reports accounted for the non-population categories. According to these reports, the gas loss damage totaled 204,445 AZN.
Important measures have been undertaken to create safe labor conditions during the work process and minimize environmental impact. As a result, the Turkish Standards Institute granted the following certificates to the Union: ISO 9001 “Quality management system”, OHSAS 18001 “HSE”, ISO 14001 “Environmental Impact Assessment” and ISO 10002 “Customer satisfaction, Complaints handling”. ASAN service centers #1, 2, 3 and 4, operating in Baku, received 20,629 complaints that were all handled by the Union.
In the first quarter of this year, the department for technical services of gas pipelines and devices inspected 64,159 apartments, carried out preventive maintenance work and instructed users about natural gas consumption rules in order to control illegal connection to gas lines, readjusted the routes and positions of gas lines and appliances inside of apartments. As a result of ongoing purposeful work, new gas pipelines with the length of 28,542.4km were laid, gas pipelines with the length of 8,333.2km underwent capital repair and 739 residential areas were gasified over the period of activity of Azerigaz PU, i.e. starting from 2009 until now. In general, the total amount of subscribers supplied with natural gas in the republic exceeds 1.75mln.
