Rustam Minnikhanov: Tatarstan must become the leader in using polymers

President of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov visited the 19th international exhibition “Oil, gas. Petrochemistry” being held at the “Kazanskaya yarmarka” and took part in forums. Head of republic saw expositions of domestic and foreign companies which presented innovations for oil and gas industry. Chiefs of the largest Tatarstan companies – Tatneft and TAIF group of companies told about plans on developing the enterprises.

Azerbaijan was for the first time presented by the state oil company SOCAR. Deputy Minister of energy of Azerbaijan Gulmammed Dzhafarov informed about intentions to stabilize production in the country to 50 mln tons per year in the short term and increase oil processing.

Speaking respectfully about Tatarstan partners, he supported development of cooperation. Main Bashkortostan enterprises were presented for the second time at the Kazan exhibition. President of the Bashkortostan Chamber of Commerce and Industry Yuri Pustovgarov said that “Oil, gas. Petrochemistry” will be the main travelling exhibition for Bashkir enterprises.

Further, Rustam Minnikhanov took part in the international research and practice conference “High-viscosity oil and natural bitumen: problems and increase of exploration efficiency and development of deposits".

“This topic is very urgent. Today we speak a lot about new technologies and new types of materials and we must use our competitive advantage of having vast resources of natural bitumen. Our scientific community – Tatneft has worked hard in this area,” Rustam Minnikhanov said.
Total resources of natural bitumen in Russia are estimated at several dozen bln tons and is characterized by low exploration. Due to complication and high cost of production of such raw material in Russia, no one has undertaken this issue commercially.

In Tatarstan, they believe that production of this alternative raw material may become new strategic area for the country’s oil industry. Since 2006, Tatneft has implemented experimental-industrial works at the Ashalchinsk deposit.

President of the Russian Union of oil and gas industry workers Gennady Shmal made report about the role of state in innovative development of the oil industry.

Representatives of the oil and gas institute of the Russian academy of sciences, the RAS Siberian branch also made reports.

Rustam Minnikhanov also attended the round table on expanding use of the republican petrochemical produce in road and capital construction. Representatives of organizations and enterprises engaged in appropriate area and potential customers took part in the forum.

“Republic has great potential having the largest producers of polymers, rubber, road materials. We must be leaders in this sphere. We must use the whole base for road and construction spheres and making auto components,” Rustam Minnikhanov said.

He believes that priority tasks are reduction of costs and improvement of quality of roads, taking into account our difficult climate conditions.