PIPELINE TRANSPORT OF RUSSIA:
PAST
,
PRESENT
AND
FUTURE
Dr. Andrey V. Bystrov, Head of the Department for Industrial Economy
at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics (PRUE) and Vadim D.
Svirchevsky, Assistant Professor of the Department for Industrial Economy
at PRUE
, explore the history of Russia’s oil and gas pipeline industry.
T
he history of pipeline transport in Russia is
connected with industrial development of
oilfields in Baku and Grozny. This process began
in 1878 when a new oil-trunk pipeline with a
maximum capacity of 80 000 poods (~10 000 bbls) of
oil per day was put into operation. The new pipeline
connected the Balakhany oilfields with the L. Nobel
plant, and was situated in Black City. The industry was
developing very dynamically in the 1960s and 1970s,
and new transportation industries – unified oil and gas
systems of the country – were established by 1970.
In the 1980s, the main pipelines had a diameter
of over 1000 mm and the average oil transmission
distance was more than 1000 km. The length of a
single piping segment reached 4000 - 5000 km with
pumping units totaling 16 - 25 000 kW in capacity.
The energy potential of gas flow that is
transported by a pipeline 1420 mm dia. at a pressure
of 7.5 MPa equals to a power station output of
15 000 MW. This number is almost three times larger
than the capacity of the largest power station on the
European continent – the Surgut-2 Power Station
(5600 MW) – which works on natural gas.
Today, pipelines of a large diameter (1420 mm
and 1220 mm) and great length in latitudinal direction
