Internal competition and the widest range of imported products at the market of compressor equipment requiring maintenance in terms of sanctions and broken supply chains do not allow Russian producers to compete with foreign suppliers. The solution was sought by the participants of the round table «Achievement of technological sovereignty in the field of compressor equipment for oil and gas industry» that took place at the ExpoForum during SPIGF 2024.

The key problem of Russian compressor producers is that in recent decades the potential customers of this market have accumulated equipment of different producers from all over the world that needs maintenance. In terms of sanctions it became impossible to obtain necessary spare parts in many cases. Russian enterprises are able to copy the necessary element, but to make it beneficial, the orders should become serial, and maintenance is required, as a rule, to a limited number of elements.

The first speaker, Andrey Chevachin, Deputy CEO – Chief Design Officer of RUMO JSC, carefully turned the attention of audience to the fact that, perhaps, due to variety of already used range of compressor equipment it is worth focusing on debugging of the global maintenance process. An alternative opinion was also heard – on rearrangement of market rules, creation of the unified range of Russian compressors and identification of commercial participants, customers and state.

As was noted by the moderator of the round table, Chairman of the Board of the Association of Compressor Plants, Mikhail Krukov, despite the large volume of orders and workload of Russian producers, the problem of personnel shortage is getting more acute. «We compete with military industrial sector which draws over personnel and forces up salaries of technical specialists, machine operators. The enterprises also have to rise salaries and it is shifted to the cost of products due to which it becomes uncompetitive», – said Mikhail Krukov remarking that situation can be corrected by planning 10 years ahead.

Evgeny Ibragimov, Director of Import Substitution and Localization of HMS Compressors Business Unit of HMS Group JSC, shared solution of personnel problem at his enterprise – organized attraction of students and direct cooperation with higher education institutions to the point that work on the enterprise is taken in consideration when organizing a schedule for the students. Thuswise, reengineering division is half staffed, in which half of the department consists of master’s and bachelor’s degrees students.

Konstantin Khabirov, Head of Gas Equipment Department of Chelyabinsk Compressor Plant LLC, noted that the state could take even more sensitive care of the compressor market and introduce certification for the remaining foreign suppliers, perhaps, raise duties.

Vyacheslav Shipov, Head of Implementation of Technological Sovereignty Programs in the Field of Energy and Compressor Equipment of Gazprom Neft PJSC called on Russian market participants to form alliances and study existing state support measures more attentively: «The state will not unite everybody, we must unite ourselves. Perhaps, by forgetting about the competition, we can achieve more. The second moment – the government has elaborated many well working mechanisms of state support, but if we look at the truth, subsidy in the amount of 300–500 mln. will not allow to create a range of high-technology equipment out of nothing. All of us need to consolidate and not only as required, but also according to production capability.