Austrian company deactivates Gazprom’s compressors via satellite
The Russian gas monopoly Gazprom has had its Austrian compressors remotely shut down, Pavel Krylov, head of department N335, told the Interfax news agency.
According to him, the equipment from the Swiss company LMF was “deactivated via satellite”. Now the compressors are “dead weight, they still aren’t working, they’ve simply turned into scrap metal,” Krylov lamented.
The manufacturer itself is capable of remotely deactivating compressors and similar equipment, a source close to Gazprom told RBC.
“Usually when signing a service contract for compressor maintenance, operational faults can be fixed remotely, and deactivation is also possible,” he explained. “It’s not impossible that they deactivated the equipment after the expiry of the service contract or the guarantee period. And if it fell under sanctions, the manufacturer could not continue to service it.”
Gazprom has old US and Swiss-produced compressors which are also at a potential risk of deactivation, a source noted.
A Gazprom representative assured RBC that the company does not have many LMF compressors, and that they are used in mobile compressor systems when carrying out repairs on gas pipelines.
Gazprom plans to replace the foreign compressors with mobile modular compressor stations produced by the company NPP “Kompressor”, which is based in Kazan, Russia.