About ZNGS - Prometey

The Zakneftegazstroy - Prometey * (ZNGS - Prometey) has been involved in pipeline construction since 1958. In that time, its specialist engineering teams have partici­pated in the construction of more than 65 major projects and facilities for the oil and gas industry. It has laid more than 6150 km of trunk pipelines in the different climatic and geologic conditions found in the Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and also in Iran, Iraq, Greece, Libya, Algeria, and Cuba.

In 1998-2000, ZNGS - Prometey partici­pated in the implementation of a major go­vernment program for gas supply in the Russian Federation, and laid about 2000 km of low-pressure gas pipelines in cities and towns in the Oryol and Astrakhan regions. Also in 2000, in an unprecedented short peri-od of just 135 days, the company constructed 233 km of the Baku - Tikhoretsk trunk oil pipeline, bypassing Chechnya in very hard conditions through the Republic of Daghestan. Then, at the end of 2001, two important trunk oil pipelines were constructed - the first, with a length of 230 km as part of the Baltic pipeline system, and the se-cond, 180 km long, in the Rostov region of Russia, by-pass­ing the Ukraine.

At the moment, subsidiaries of ZNGS Prometey are participating in the construction of the Yamal-Western Europe pipeline (the sector in Belarus), and the Blue Stream (Russia-Turkey) transcontinental trunk gas pipelines, the latter in a difficult stretch, with complicated mountainous terrain, in the Krasnodar area of southern Russia.

The company's management takes great care in improving the qualification and engi­neering and technical skills of its staff. Annually, 100-120 engineers and workers attend special training courses, and the ma-nagement's atten-tion is further focused on modernizing the equipment and facilities being used throughout the company. ZNGS - Prometey owns special­ized plant in Russia, manufacturing heavy engi­neering and vehicles, including pipe-carriers, trailers, timber-carriers, electric welding, and other equipment.

The technical and qualification expertise of the company allows it to construct, with its own facilities, up to 500 km of pipeline with diame-ters 1220-1420 mm, and over 1500 km of poly-ethylene low-pressure pipeline annually. Besides this, ZGNS-Prometey indepen-dently carries out its own engineering design for gas pipelines with working pressures from 1-1.2 MPa.

High quality, assured contractually, is said to be the basic principle of any work done by the company. Quality Management System of Prometey is certified by Bureau Veritas Quality International (London, UK) according ISO 9001-2000, and accredited to the national quality and standards systems of the UK, Holland, and the USA. The company is also a regular member of IPLOCA, PIG and RASOTT-main international and domestic contractors associations.

«We have more than 2400 people in our team at ZNGS-Prometey. We always keep our promises, and consider it as the major tenet of both business and life», said Simon Gevorkyan, Chairman of the Board of ZNGS - Prometey recently. Mr. Simon Gevorkyan is a profession-al engineer, bom in 1943, who acquired con-siderable experience working for the former Soviet gas and oil industry for over 25 years. He was awarded the Orders of Labour Banner, the Badge of Honour, and a number of other state and public prizes. Simon Gevorkyan is a member of the Russian Academy of Technological Sciences and International Academy of Energy.

* [Readers may well know that Prometheus, the son of lapetus, was the young Greek God who got his mother's (Athena's) permission to form man in the image of the gods using the clay and water of Panopeus in Phocis, after which his mother breathed life into them, etc. ... and the rest is history...though some deny this.]