In 2024, the GTS Operator of Ukraine (GTSOU) is set to carry out a large-scale expansion of the mobile maintenance and repair programme within which 167 new mobile teams will be created for maintenance of gas distribution stations.

The mobile maintenance and repair project is part of the GTSOU’s strategy aimed at improving the reliability and efficiency of the gas transmission system. Given the positive results of the “pilot project,” 43 mobile maintenance teams have already been admitted to operation, and the Company plans to create another 167 brigades by the end of 2024. Each mobile team will be assigned to maintain a designated “cluster”, i.e. several gas distribution stations and an adjacent linear part of gas pipelines. In total, in 2024, mobile teams will be serving 819 gas distribution stations.

“For us, mobile teams are a means to effectively use our resources through the engagement of personnel to the maintenance of, first and foremost, gas distribution stations. Implementation of this approach consists in a number of measures resulting in a significant improvement of the GTS’s condition. If the technical condition of a facility allows switching it to a different mode of maintenance, we include it in a mobile maintenance service area,” Yurii Zyabchenko, GTSOU’s Chief Engineer, said.

A similar maintenance practice of gas infrastructure facilities is also used in Europe. GTSOU particularly focused on the experience of Snam, Italy’s operator, that uses this approach to maintain not only its gas distribution stations, but the pipelines’ linear parts and compressor stations, too.

Let it be reminded that in order for the work of mobile teams to meet the standards of European GTS operators, as well as be automated and transparent, GTSOU requested and received technical assistance from USAID, through its Energy Security Project (USAID ESP), for the purchase of a mobile application.

Already in 2024, mobile teams will be using the mobile application in their operations as the main tool for gathering data about the technical condition of equipment. This will improve the quality of maintenance and repairs of gas infrastructure facilities and reduce the number of emergency shutdowns.