OREANDA-NEWS. In the first six months of 2007 employees of OJSC Sibirgazservis (Novosibirsk branch of GAZEKS-Management) attained a better stability of underground gas pipelines operation. Over this period the number of emergency calls due to problems with underground gas pipelines reduced to 37 against 109 in the first six months of 2006. Besides, the occurrence of gas pipelines congestion caused by ice and hydrate blocks also reduced dramatically. The company's emergency teams made three visits to accident sites, whereas in the first six months of 2006 they had to make 17 such visits. Andrey Lyutikov, Chief Engineer at Sibirgazservis, puts this down to a warmer winter this year as compared with last year's freeze.

Nevertheless, the number of accidents caused by cars hitting and breaking gas pipelines hardly decreased at all: 3 incidents in the first six months of 2007, and 4 in the same period of 2006.

A representative of the company says that the people of Novosibirsk have been helping the gas service to prevent pipeline accidents caused by excavations made by various construction companies and individuals, especially in the summertime. Very often those engaged in such works do not have acts of approval issued by gas services permitting excavations in the vicinity of gas pipeline protection zones. For instance, an emergency gas service team interfered just in time to prevent a pipeline from being broken by a privately hired excavator. The accident was prevented thanks to an eyewitness who gave a timely warning by calling "04".