Georgia: Regional Workshop on “Gas infrastructure. Pipelines for maximum operating pressure over 16 bar. Functional requirements”

Objective

The overall objective of the assignment is to provide capacity building to organizations and individuals involved in gas supply about the EN 1594 functional standard and other relevant standards, to increase user’s understanding and enhance its implementation in Georgia and other countries in the region.

Georgia has a significant amount of gas infrastructure, the majority of which was based on older Soviet standards, similar to current GOST standards. The country is now substituting and adding further infrastructure which is becoming challenging as they are using a group of US and EU standards, trying to ensure the new equipment complies with international best practice. In particular, the challenge is mainly around the incomplete understanding of the EN 1594 standard, which only provides a framework regarding the infrastructure and not specific characteristics needed for the design of the infrastructure. This lack of understanding also results in users applying the EN 1594 standard partially, and thus not being fully compliant.

GeoSTM is aware of these issues and wishes to address the problem through this training, providing detailed knowledge about EN 1594 and its use, and also how other DVGW codes of practice (DVGW G463, G466, GW10 and G491) fit within this standard and provide more detailed guidance which is currently necessary in Georgia.

There are currently no other programmes or donor activities identified delivering activities related to this specific topic.

The specific objective of the task is to provide a Regional Workshop for participants on the following topics:

• EN 1594 as the main functional standard for the European natural gas transportation system.

• Overview of the operation of functional standards specifying basic requirements to the main gas supply elements (EN 12583:2000, EN 1776, EN 1918, EN 12186:2000+А1, etc.)

• Overview of operation of standards for the main technological processes (EN 12327:2000, EN 12732:2000, etc.)

• Overview of key DVGW standards complementing EN 1594 (G463, G466, GW10 and G491)

• Recommendations on the procedure of adopting operation and maintenance practices of these standards