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                              Pic.14.  Stationary storage vessel for LNG

                                           
                     Pic. 15. The unit for natural gas liquification UC 00.000

                             
                        Pic. 16.  Another

                               

                     

                                   


                                


                                  

               


                                              

                              Gas Exhibition 2009-2010 in Ukraine, Turkey and Russia.

16-19 June 2010 in Kiev  the annual international exhibition and business forum "World of liquefied and compressed gases – 2010 was held. It was the 10-th jubilee exhibition and business forum. It was organized with the participation of Gas Association of Ukraine, Ukrainian Association of Industrial Gases Manufacturers 'UA-SIGMA' Exhibition Company "Medvin, which is the official organizer of all exhibitions of the Gas Association of Ukraine. The largest gas forum in Ukraine was held with the support of Kiev City State Administration, Ministry of Fuel and Energy of Ukraine, Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of Ukraine. Media partners of the event, traditionally, as in previous years, were the International Scientific and Technical Journal "AGZK + AT" and the Polish gas magazine "Czas na gaz!" ("Time for gas!").

       The Exhibition in Kiev traditionally consists of two main thematic sections / These are  gas fuel, gas-engine vehicles, as well as the production and the technology of industrial gases and equipment for the technical (industrial) gas. Such an approach to the subject of the exhibition of the Kiev differs markedly from the Russian approach to the organization and themes of gas exhibitions. In Moscow, every fall two separate international exhibitions related to the NGV topics are held. In October, in Moscow, annually an Exhibition  named “AutoComplex” is held, and it includes a significant amount of Natural Gas Vehicles section. Yet this NGV section is still inferior to the number of exhibitors and exhibits in the section devoted to serving the complex of motor vehicles on the traditional liquid fuels. In November, in the same place, in Moscow, another exhibition "Cryogen-Expo" is held, which also contains its part of the NGV exhibits, but overall it is still more devoted to the topics of technical (industrial) gas and to cryogenic equipment operating at very low temperatures. NGV subjects, although only slightly, but still is also present in the gas exhibitions sponsored or partially sponsored by the Russian giant gas company. Gazprom.

        Holding a few scattered NGV shows a year in Russia, in one way or another, on the one hand, allows for the participants of NGV market ( in many countries and, more importantly, domestic producers ) to exhibit their NGV and LPG equipment, along with their achievements,  to present themselves several times a year  in several different places and in different formats .

In a way it is good as the Expos are more specialized.  However, on the other hand, this approach does not allow Russia to consider any of these exhibitions as primarily NGV and LPG Auto gas Expos as such. Moreover, not all Russian participants of one of this exhibition then, after a short time, wish to exhibit their products at another gas exhibition. Participation in the exhibition requires considerable financial expense, but today, many companies prefer to save money on advertising, marketing, on the “image promotion” exhibition activities. The reasons for this are clear. These are the economic crisis, lack of free money available at the medium sized gas companies. ...

        Ukrainian approach to organizing exhibitions in the NGV-LPG industry
 (own Ukrainian industry and of their foreign partners) differs from the Russian and almost completely coincides with the Turkish approach to the subjects of this exhibition: NGV-LPG subject and cryogenic themes are usually combined in one exhibition in these two countries. This was again confirmed in early April 2010 in Istanbul, where a major international gas exhibition “Gas Turkie-2010” was held, in which there were two adjacent, large in size and in number of participants Exhibition pavilions. In one of them, in the main pavilion, there were representatives of only Auto gas (“OTOGAS” in Turkish) industry and nothing else. In an adjacent hall, which was somewhat smaller in scale, there were exhibits of the equipment for industrial gases, cryogenic equipment and technology. (In other words, in the three countries mentioned in this article only in Turkey “OTOGAS” was the main theme at the exhibition. In Ukraine, the topics of the exhibition itself has been identified as subjects of industrial gases – The World of Liquefied and Compressed Gases", but, unlike at Russian cryogenic exhibitions, AUTOGAS  theme was presented in Kiev Expo more widely than in Russia). In a way Ukraine is situated in between Russia and Turkey not only geographically but in their choice of their Gas Expos as well. In the subject of exhibits it is more close to Turkey. In the manner to organize a scientific-technological Conference during the Expo it does not differ from Russia at all. It is natural as the “old Soviet school” scientifically and technologically is the same in both States.

 The similarity of Ukrainian and Turkish gas shows were evident in the simple fact that their Autogas sections almost entirely were devoted to transport running on LPG - propane and butane. Vehicles, running on compressed natural gas-CNG, in both countries were presented very little, and liquefied (cryogenic) natural gas (LNG) transport at the Ukrainian and the Turkish exhibitions in 2010 was totally absent. However, at the Russian exhibitions, means of transport , running on CNG also have not been presented, indicating present  Russia's technological backwardness of the United States, where such transportation, especially the municipality  transport (in particular, heavy-duty urban waste collecting trucks and heavy trucks serving the sea ports) is paid a great attention. The USA has started a mass production of such vehicles running on LNG. This is particularly unfortunate, given that 20 years ago the Soviet Union did not lag behind the U.S. in scientific and technical developments in cryogenics.

Space launcher "Energy" in essence represented a giant "Cryogenic vessel" of more than 100 tons in volume. It was filled with extremely inflammable mixture of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen at very low temperatures. This "vessel", stuffed with sophisticated instrumentation, lifted into outer space the first Soviet space “shuttle” named Buran, which successfully performed the world's first automatic landing on a runway like a conventional aircraft.  For which purpose”? Evidently not for being presently displayed as an entertaining exhibit in the Moscow city  Gorky Park . That is why the largest exhibit of Turkish exhibition - cryogenic vessels with a volume of 50 tons, caused  Ukrainian cryogenic specialists’ at the Turkish exhibition (Russians were absent, except  the author of this article) ironic and sad smiles: "We, the Soviet cryogenic specialists, 20 years ago launched a two-fold heavier» vessel" to outer space. So this Turkish "cryogenic barrel» for  land use can not be of any surprise for us. " One can grieve about the memories of the glorious past, of the past scientific and technological achievements in the past united Homeland.

But let’s get back to Kiev exhibition. “ The World of Liquefied and Compressed Gases" was organized by the Ukrainian Gas Association and  the Ukrainian Expo Company "MEDVIN" for the first time in 2001. The main task which the organizers set for themselves at the beginning of the exhibition history was to popularize the use of gas as motor fuel in the Ukrainian automobile and other modes of transport,  in different utilities and energy sectors. "The World of Liquefied and Compressed Gases" -is the only exhibition event in Ukraine dedicated to the issues of gas fuel exclusively. The main themes of the event usually are the conversion of municipal and other public transport, as well as agricultural and special equipment to gaseous motor fuel. A large part of the Exhibition and the majority of scientific reports delivered during the Conference (business forum) have been traditionally devoted to this topic. In addition, from 2005 onwards, through the initiative of the Ukrainian Association of Industrial Gases Manufacturers' UA-SIGMA an adjacent section has been added to the Exhibition. It is devoted to cryogenic technologies, equipment for production, liquefaction, compression, purification of gases, cryogenic storage vessels and various means of cryogenic liquids transportation, etc.. Such subjects are shown and discussed in Ukraine only at this place – the annual Kiev Gas Expo of liquid and compressed gases.

 Interest in the topics of gas use  in Ukraine is not accidental. Today, Ukraine is among the ten world leaders in the number of gas vehicles (running on compressed methane), which, however, was not adequately reflected in the exhibition, where LPG technologies were predominant. It is natural in a way as Ukraine today is actively developing the market of propane-butane fuel and naturally LPG  was given a special attention at the exhibition, as well as during one-day conference (business Forum), where along with the theme of LPG there have also been a few reports on the biogas production and its use as a motor fuel for transportation and for stationary electric power plants.

        It should be noted that the conference was perhaps the most interesting event at the exhibition. For the first time in many years, it was visited by the head of the Office of the Gasification of Gazprom Company, Mr. E.N Pronin.  He presented a paper on "International cooperation – as one of the tools of NGV market." Noteworthy was the theme of a "counter-report" delivered by the Chairman of the conference - the Director of the Gas Association of Ukraine Mr. S.A Kovalev.

His paper was entitled "European strategy for environmentally sound and energy efficient vehicles." In other words, if the representative of the Russian Natural Gas Vehicle Association and the Russian gas monopoly company ( Gazprom), Mr. E.N Pronin, spoke about international cooperation, bearing in mind at this event, the Russian-Ukrainian cooperation, especially at a time when Russian-Ukrainian relations are getting better since the change in State power in Kiev, at the same time the representative of the Ukrainian public and a government official offered a “European strategy». He offered it to the Ukrainian audience and to Mr. E.N. Pronin ( in effect to the Russian “natural monopoly” company Gazprom)  That is understandable, given the long-standing aspiration of Ukraine to join the EU.

However, a heated debate between Russians and Ukrainians at the conference was absent. There was no mentioning of "rough edges" in Russian-Ukrainian gas relations. Although some problems were voiced by the Ukrainian participants, but these did not necessarily have been associated with the supply of Russian natural gas to Ukraine, with the price of Russian gas for Ukraine, etc.

Thus, at the conference, a disappointment was voiced about the fact that Russia does not allow to increase the supply of Russian propane-butane mixture to the Ukraine, while Ukrainian side is ready to buy much larger quantities of Russian hydrocarbon gas because of its higher quality, which is so essential for its use as a motor fuel. It is noteworthy that the program and conference papers were published only in Ukrainian language and partly in English language, while the conference itself was conducted only in Russian language.  In a way it was natural as genuine foreign nationals were absent, Except for the three  Russian participants of the conference – the representative of the giant company Gazprom Mr. Pronin, the marketing director of the small business company “Mikrometan"  from a small Russian town named Sarov Mr. Mezhov  and of the representative of the journal AGZK + AT " Mr.troitsky. The latter was present  without a report.  ( Indeed, it would be odd to be treated as “foreign nationals” in a Russian speaking audience the great majority of which used the Russian language as a mother tongue and as the only language most comprehensible as a “technical language” for all the specialists who gathered at this Ukrainian Conference ).

It seems that such meager representation of Russian firms at the Kiev Expo is due on the one hand to the economic crisis in Russia, and on the other hand – due to the many difficulties existing in Russian-Ukrainian joint business and trade. There were almost no Russian private firms ( Russian State government cotrolled GAZPROM monopoly does not count)  because of  the lack of a large-scale cooperation between Russian and Ukrainian gas private businesses. As it can be understood from the reports of the Ukrainian side, for Ukraine, on many issues, it is much easier today to work with East and West European firms, rather than with Russian ones. There are so many reasons for that. Beginning from complicated customs formalities up to the mutual certification of equipment hurdles. Almost always these are associated with very costly bureaucratic procedures, and sometimes with different conditions of use of gas in Russia and Ukraine.

Thus, in his short speech in response to a report on the Russian micro CNG filling stations from Sarov town, S.A. Kovalev, explicitly stated that, as a representative of the state structure, he does not accept the idea of using micro CNG filling stations connected to the household gas network in Ukraine, due to the fact that in Ukraine the price of gas for domestic consumption is subsidized by the Ukrainian State, while  the price of NGV fuel is not subsidized, therefore the use of such micro CNG stations is essentially a form of theft of government subsidies for domestic gas for the Ukrainian population.

 In his report from the Institute of Gas of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, a graduate of the Moscow Higher Technical School im. Bauman V.S. Verbovskii spoke on the topic: "The use of alternative fuel gases to duel fuel supply and gas-piston power plants’ He noted, in particular, the high quality of the Russian made ( in Yaroslavl city) diesel engines YMZ-238, which, according to the speaker, after 20,000 machine hours of work should be written off to the scrap according to the existing regulations, but it turns out that after the dismantling of the engine which was running on gas the state of pistons and cylinders of the engine look  "almost like these are new ones." Nevertheless, the rapporteur noted that, most likely imports of good Russian diesel engines will be abandoned  because of the sharp price rise for these engines. Due to the economic crisis the issue of price is very essential for Ukrainians and European companies, understanding this, set the prices which are reasonable and affordable for Ukrainian companies.

It should be noted that the economic crisis also affected the magnitude of the exhibition in Kiev - it was noticeably smaller than a pre-crisis Expo, a very successful 8th exhibition in May 2008. Not only Russian but also European firms in crisis are trying to reduce budgets for advertising, marketing and exhibitions.

But this is the "European strategy". In Turkey, although it also tends to act as if it were already a member of the European Union, the attitude to the exhibitions is somewhat different.

Istanbul Gas Exhibition in April 2010 offered a “Turkish strategy”. It was not a small one/ It was big indeed. Although it was not on such a grand scale as June 2010 oil international exhibition in Moscow "Oil &Gas-2010" (where only Chinese companies numbered several dozen and were often grouped together in the Expo "China Towns" with "Chinese streets" in the middle of the Chinese stands ). Yet the Turkish exhibition was bigger than Kiev Expo and the above-mentioned annual autumn Moscow gas shows. Members of the Turkish exhibition were mostly Turkish firms, which are often well aware of each other. It would seemto wonder -what a special interest is there in the participation in such an exhibition for Turkish firms? On the question of the author of this article, what caused such an active participation of Turkish firms in conditions of economic crisis, one of  the Turkish Expo members explained as follows: "If the company takes part in the exhibition, it means it is alive, it develops and one can work with this company. This is the most important in crisis situations. If a company does not participate in the exhibitions it can be understood that the company quits the business”. Well, it was a reasonable explanation of Turks activity in Turkey itself.

 
It should be noted that many big foreign firms participating in the Moscow Oil and Gas Exhibition 2010 shared this opinion with the Turkish businessmen. While the issue of price, even at this successful exhibition in Moscow played a role. According to some reports in this oil and gas exhibition it was planned to organize a separate "Saloon" of Industrial Gases with the price per square meter which was   three times higher than for the participation in the overall oil and gas exposure. The idea of a "saloon" totally failed precisely because of the high prices. A separate section for industrial gases was not held, as the potential participants failed to get together at such a price. Some participants of this exhibition also talked about the hidden discounts to many foreign companies, which were provided a larger area for the pavilions, rather than actually were paid for. With this approach all the pavilions of the exhibition occupied the whole space of the Expo. And it gave an impression of a total success of the Expo in terms of total occupation of the Expo space.  There was not an empty space behind or next to the Expo stands.  What can not be said neither about the exhibition of the Kiev nor about the post-crisis Autumn gas exhibitions in Moscow: there was quite a lot of the empty space. The Turks also had no empty space at the exhibition, despite the large area of pavilions.

All this should make the organizers of the gas motor and industrial gas exhibitions in Ukraine and Russia think about the enlargement of the exhibition and about the overcoming of the "exhibition disunity». By the way, before the June exhibition in Kiev there were no any other gas exhibitions, but the gas conference arranged by the other organizers was held shortly before the June exhibition and some foreign firms participating in the conference did not participate in the exhibition after such a short period of time between these two gas events. In addition, the second half of June - this is the start time for annual leaves. It does influence the participation level.  Probably because of this factor the Turks organize their annual show in early April, and Russians - in late autumn. Most likely, the next Kiev exhibition "World of Liquefied and Compressed Gases” will move on dates  to late May days or early June 2011.

 Conducting a successful gas exhibition – it is indeed a major contribution to the development of the NGV and LPG industry. But this is also a great preparatory and organizational work, which does not always, due to external circumstances, lead to the planned big success.

 
In conclusion, I would like to note that despite all the problems, annual gas event in Kiev was quite successful. Despite the crisis, the decline in exhibition activity of the Expo participants was too large, and the conference was very successful. Reports presented at conference covered the widest range of problems of the NGV industry and technical gases. Their subjects were interesting and useful for the participants. Two reports, in particular, focused on such important topics for Ukraine as the use and production of biogas for vehicles. One report dealt with the problem of utilization of methane which is created by the solid household waste in landfills. (In the U.S. this technology for producing methane has already been mastered, and in Russia, it is apparently lacking until natural gas from fields in the Far North is available, although methane from landfills is abundantly released into the atmosphere. And methane creates more greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide emissions.) Two reports were devoted to the topic of forecasting changes in domestic prices for natural and compressed gas. These reports attracted the attention of all participants. In one of these two reports prepared by the Kiev Scientific-Technical Center "Psyche" the rapporteur argued that under the "Slavic School of Economics", based on theories of Tugan-Baranovsky and Kondratiev, it possible to forecast the crisis changes in prices for gas and oil 3 or 4 months before the event – the feat which was impossible recently for two unnamed American Nobel Prize winners for Economics.

10 October, 2009 – 10 July 2010.

 Moscow-Istanbul-Kiev-Moscow. 

      Photos by the author of the article from the five Expos mentioned here see at 

                 
                                           

      The most interesting article in the INFORMATION section of Issue #2 ( 50 ) 2010 is about
                                   

                                                        

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