OREANDA-NEWS. May 31, 2011. Implementation of the Program for Gas-Powered Vehicles in Sverdlovsk Oblast has become the dominant issue at the first meeting of representatives of OJSC KAMAZ and the Ministry of Transport and Road Service of Sverdlovsk Oblast which was recently been held in Yekaterinburg.

The meeting was attended by the leaders of municipal organizations of the city and the region. Among them there was Chairman of the Transport Committee of Yekaterinburg Alex Kurlykov, President of the Union of Automobile Enterprises of Sverdlovsk Oblast Nikolai Gerasimov, representatives of Gazprom. The working group’s meeting was attended by the following KAMAZ representatives: Deputy Chief Designer of the oil and gas complex of KAMAZ’s R&D Center Alexander Malyuga, and Rafael Batyrshin, CEO of RariTEK which develops and produces gas-powered vehicles jointly with KAMAZ.

It should be recalled that an idea to create a working group composed of specialists of OJSC KAMAZ and Sverdlovsk Oblast was born at the "Innoprom-2010" exhibition held in Yekaterinburg last summer, where Sverdlovsk Oblast Governor Alexander Misharin expressed interest in KAMAZ’s exhibits and, particularly, in new models of the model range of gas-powered KAMAZ vehicles. Later, the governor visited KAMAZ in April this year, which proves his strong interest in gas vehicles.

It is usual for many managers of enterprises and state institutions of Sverdlovsk Oblast to use compressed natural gas (methane) as automobile fuel. For example, since 2004 OOO Gazprom Transgaz Yekaterinburg has been successfully using 10 suburban buses NEFAZ-5299-11-21 powered by KAMAZ gas engines.