Misopportunities

In March 2018, the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, made five initiatives aimed at socio-economic development of the state, the last of which was the construction of the Saryarka gas pipeline. As early as this month it is planned to solemnly announce the beginning of construction work.

In truth, the implementation of the most long-awaited state project expected by the broad masses of residents of non-gasified regions, already in 2019 to sigh deeply in Astana - the connection with the peculiarities of the fuel and energy complex of the capital, the products of combustion of diesel and coal fuel strongly pollute the atmosphere, sometimes finding the open air is unbearable. However it is important to note that bringing the MG to the capital in accordance with the declared schedule does not yet mean launching gas into each house and boiler room. For these purposes it is necessary now to fully engage in the development and implementation of projects for the construction of an intracity gas infrastructure.

Meanwhile blue fuel has been delivered to Astana since the beginning of 2017 and by now fully covers the need for fuel from the boiler plants of three large enterprises. So for the heating season of 2017-2018, about 700 million tenge of budget funds were saved and emissions of harmful substances were reduced by 23 tons due to the complete replacement of diesel fuel with methane. Looking at these figures we can safely state the huge potential of LNG technology and the "virtual gas pipeline". Moreover, in August 2017 Astana Akim (Governor) Aset Isekeshev signed a protocol in which the Global Gas Group as the only natural gas methane supplier in Astana, intended to transfer several boiler houses of large enterprises at its own expense which would provide an even more significant environmental and economic effect without any investment from the consumer.

Since then a year has passed but the representatives of the city authorities responsible for the implementation of the protocol still did not form the technical specifications for drawing up the DED. Such an obvious and perhaps, deliberate omission of the opportunity to realize the heating season 2018-2019 in Astana with gas fuel directly entails costs of 2 billion tenge of budget funds that could be avoided by timely implementing the orders specified in the protocol under the chairmanship of Akim.