Russian
Company’s history
Limited Liability Company Scientific-Research Institute of Natural Gases and Gas Technologies GAZPROM VNIIGAZ (OOO “GAZPROM VNIIGAZ”) OAO Gazprom is one of the largest scientific centres in the Russian Federation.
As the all-union R&D Institute of Natural Gases, GAZPROM VNIIGAZ was established on May 21, 1948 by order No. 260 (dated June 2, 1948) of Glavgaztopprom in accordance with the regulation No. 6206-R (dated May 21, 1948) of the USSR Council of Ministers.
E. Ya. Starobinets was the first director of GAZPROM VNIIGAZ (1948–1950). He was among the discoverers of the Tujmazinskoe oil field. Starobinets was at the head of the Institute at the crucial stage of its establishment. At that time the number of employees amounted to only 60 people.
The institute carried out investigations on geology of natural gas (A.V. Danov, B.P. Zhizhchenko, A.L. Kozlov, R.M. Pistrak, V.P. Savchenko, V.M. Senyukov, A.A. Khanin, etc.); operation and assessment of gas well productivity (G.A. Adamov, A.A. Briksman, M.A. Genkin, E.M. Minskiy, V.N. Raaben, etc.); scientific support of operation of the Saratov-Moscow gas pipeline (A.L. Khalif, I.E. Khodanovich, etc.); gas processing (A.A. Anisonyan, A.S. Velikovskiy, A.K. Karpov, V.V. Keltsev, K.I. Makarov, P.A. Tesner, etc.).
In 1950–1959 GAZPROM VNIIGAZ was headed by A.K. Ivanov – a famous chemist and engineer who contributed much to the development of the technology of chemical processing of natural gas. At that period the gas industry that was previously part of the oil industry became an independent sector of the national economy. In 1956 the Head Department of the Gas Industry of the USSR (Glavgaz) was established. Gas prospecting began in Central Asia, Kuban, the Stavropol region, in Ukraine and the Volga region, and resulted in the discovery of several fields, namely: Severo-Stavropolskoe, Mirnenskoe, Shebelinskoe, Gazlinskoe, Severo-Murbarekskoe, Korobkovskoe, Stepnovskoe, etc. Thus, these discoveries initiated the construction of new gas pipelines.
Accelerated increase of gas production in the country required addressing new scientific problems: prospect evaluation of gas bearing capacity of USSR regions (V.G. Vasiliev, V.P. Stupakov, etc.); development of commercial exploration methods, gas reserve assessment (N.D. Yelin, A.L. Kozlov, V.P. Savchenko, L.S. Temin, etc.) and hydro geologic surveys of oil and gas bearing regions (L.M. Zor’kin, V.G. Kozlov, V.N. Kortsenstein, E.E. London, Yu.V. Mukhin, E.V. Stadnik, etc.); study of reservoir rocks (K.I. Bagrintseva, Z.I. Kozlovtseva, I.A. Koposov, A.A. Khanin, etc.).
At the same time development of gas fields and operation of gas wells actually formed a separate research area. Scientific foundations of reservoir engineering and gas field development analysis promoted investigations into gas filtration and inflow of gas to wells (Yu.P. Korotaev, E.M. Minskiy, A.L. Khein, etc.); gas dynamics (G.A. Adamov, A.A. Briskman, M.A. Genkin, G.A. Zotov, etc.); stimulation of gas inflow to the bottom hole and well operation safety (A.I. Arutyunov, B.P. Gvozdev, V.A. Kireev, N.E. Legezin, V.A. Khoroshilov, etc.). Development of test methods for wells and equipment designed for deep surveys has begun at that time as well (A.A. Briskman, V.I. Ermilov, G.A. Zotov, Yu.P. Korotaev, E.M. Minskiy, S.M. Tverkovkin, etc.).
First underground gas storages appeared in 1958. Thereby GAZPROM VNIIGAZ scientists under the guidance of V.N. Raaben undertook the integrated research on scientific substantiation of the best UGS parameters and operating conditions for depleted gas fields and water-bearing formations (S.N. Buzinov, I.N. Bykov, E.V. Levykin, G.I. Soldatkin, etc.).
Steady and unsteady gas flow was further studied under the guidance of I.E. Khodanovich. These studies resulted in the development of scientific foundations for gas pipeline design and operation (Z.T. Galiullin, K.S. Zarembo, V.A. Mamaev, G.E. Odisharia, etc.).
In 1953 the Academic Council and in 1956 – the postgraduate course were established in GAZPROM VNIIGAZ.
In 1959–1965 GAZPROM VNIIGAZ was headed by F.A. Trebin, the famous scientist in the field of petrophysics. At this stage GAZPROM VNIIGAZ became one of the leading centres of the gas industry. GAZPROM VNIIGAZ specialists were mainly involved in the development of scientific and technical solutions for establishment of the unified gas supply system (UGSS) of the USSR. Thereby investigations focused on conditions of field formation and geological structure, methods of efficient management of field development, reliability enhancement and control over gas flows regarding UGS system, economic justification of the best gas industry development scenarios, etc.
To control the implementation of project solutions aimed at development of basic natural gas fields, to perform integrated studies for increasing the feedstock base of major gas producing regions and to address operational issues at gas industry facilities, GAZPROM VNIIGAZ began to organize the branch network in different regions (Stavropol region, Ukraine, Komi USSR, Uzbekistan, the Western Siberia, Turkmenia). Later they became independent regional R&D and project institutes. In particular, in 1962 Stavropol R&D laboratory of GAZPROM VNIIGAZ was founded. It was then transformed into the Severno-Kavkazskiy branch of GAZPROM VNIIGAZ and in 1971 it became the Severno-Kavkazskiy R&D Institute of Natural Gases. From the date of foundation till 1988 SevKavNIPIgaz was headed by Nikolay Rubenovich Akopyan.
In 1965 P.A. Tesner, a well-known scientist in the chemical gas processing area, the founder of this scientific line in the Institute, was appointed the GAZPROM VNIIGAZ’s director. During his short leadership the very complicated project of developing the Vuktylskoe unique gas condensate field was carried out and scientific grounds for accelerated development of major gas fields in the north of the Tyumen region were formulated (O.F. Andreev, B.G. Bergo, S.N. Buzinov, N.A. Bukreva, U.P. Korotaev, V.D. Malevanskiy, V.F. Perepelichenko, N.G. Stepanov, L.S. Temin, O.F. Hudyakov, etc.). The low temperature natural gas separation studies were launched at that time as well.
From 1968 to 1977 GAZPROM VNIIGAZ was headed by S.F. Gudkov, a well-known scientist in the chemical gas processing area. Under his leadership the Institute successfully addressed scientific-technical issues of developing the Orenburg sour oil & gas condensate field and bringing into operation the Orenburg gas chemical complex, the major one in the country. In these years GAZPROM VNIIGAZ together with other organizations of the Ministry of Gas Industry carried out integrated projects of developing major fields in the Western Siberia and Middle Asia.
In 1977-2000 A.I. Gritsenko was the GAZPROM VNIIGAZ’s director. In this period the GAZPROM VNIIGAZ’s role as a leading field R&D centre of gas industry increased. The Institute carried out strategic investigations associated with the development of gas industry. The most attention was paid to fundamental theoretical and experimental research in the area of the integrated studies of deposits and natural gas underground storage operation, control over deposit development processes aimed at increasing gas condensate recovery ratio, compound gas field processing, trunk high pressure gas transmission; high-end developments in reliability and safety of gas industry facilities; integrated hydrocarbon feedstock use; developments in applying the system approach to creating software for modelling natural locations using various gas development geotechnologies.
From 2000 to 2001 GAZPROM VNIIGAZ was headed by V.V. Remizov, who had extensive experience of working at major gas production facilities of the Western Siberia and as the deputy head of Gazprom. At this time main attention was focused on improving the organization and increasing the efficiency of scientific research in the Institute, search for new efficient mechanisms to implement the scientific developments at the industrial oil & gas facilities.
In 2002–2005 R.M. Ter-Sarkisov was the general director of GAZPROM VNIIGAZ. At that time the Institute concentrated its efforts on working out programs of integrated development and use of natural resources and increasing the efficiency of development and operation of gas fields in the Western and Eastern Siberia, the Pre-Caspian region, the Timano-Pechorskiy basin; creating new technologies for increasing the efficiency of operation of gas condensate and oil & gas condensate fields at the last development stage; addressing the issues of energy and resource saving, ecological and technical safety of gas industry facilities, gas pipeline repair and technical maintenance, advanced hydrocarbon feedstock processing; shelf field operation and infrastructure development.
In September 2005 R.O. Samsonov was appointed the general director of the Institute.