Decree No. 216 of the Russian President, dated May 13, 2019, established the Energy Security Doctrine for the Russian Federation, designed to protection the country’s economics and population, as well as minimize the threat to national security in the field of energy. Means of protection, trends, opportunities and risks were discussed during the panel discussion THE EFFICIENT DEVELOPMENT OF THE GAS INDISTRY AS THE FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF RUSSIA’S ENERGY SECURITY, arranged during the 9th St. Petersburg International Gas Forum.
The gas sector holds the strategic position within the fuel and energy complex: it satisfies Russia’s need for energy carriers and ensures a significant share of export and tax income into the state budget.
Russia is the world’s leader in terms of reserves, recovery and export scopes of natural gas. In 2018, they recovered 725.4 bln m3 of gas. Total home consumption was 493,2 bln m3, whereas 245 bln m3 (including LNG supplies) were provided for export. It’s rather obvious that the gas leader meets certain external and internal challenges and threats. That’s the reason why it’s so important to ensure energy safety of the state and retain the image of a reliable gas supplier in the eyes of foreign consumers.
One of the most important questions is how to implement the tasks for the industry protection, not making it a goal in itself. Nikolay Kislenko, Deputy Head of Department at Gazprom, CEO at the Gas and Economy R&D Institute LLC remarked, «We suggested that if we equip all the industry-related facilities with state-of-the-art security systems, maintenance of those systems will cost much higher than maintenance of the facilities themselves, and that’s absurd. It is important to consider our priorities and take efforts only where it is essential.» Moreover, the speaker said that gas transportation has special aspects. Even if all Gazprom’s recovery fields will stop working, people will only realize that in a few days, as the system is rather inert and gas is transported quite slowly. In a way, it makes the system more robust – there is always some gas reserve in the pipe, and the system automatically supports itself. «This way, there is no sense in terror attacks on the headquarters,» Nikolay Kislenko emphasized. «That’s why approaches to security matters have to be different in the gas and, for instance, the oil industries, where an online terroristic act is possible, leaving a million city blacked out or creating some other crucial risks. That makes it obvious that natural gas is the key to energy safety.»
Vyacheslav Kulagin, Head of the Department for the Global and Russian Energy Research at the Energy Research Institution of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IEN RAN) believes that creation of digital clones (DC) is important in providing security against wrongful and terroristic acts. The term of digital clones has appeared quite recently, 2 or 3 years ago, but the DC principle has been in use in Russia for at least twenty years. The point is to make complete digital copies of existing production sites and test protection methods with them. «Digital clones facilitate imitation of any emergencies, and we can see how security systems react, if they can fix the problem on their own, or if they switch to a critical condition. In a similar way, we can imitate the risk of wrongful acts or external threats and try to solve the issues of their elimination not with the real system, but with its copy,» the discussion moderator concluded.
The participants of the panel discussion also believe that the security problem can be solved through using drones instead of humans. Drones can easily solve tasks of external air-delivered supervision of gas facilities and situation control.
Alexander Kurdin, Head of Research at the Fuel and Energy Directorate of the Analytical Center for the Government of the Russian Federation, said a joke, «However, I hope we won’t have to arrange a conference How drones can help protect us from drones.»