THE SPA INDUSTRIAL DEVICES TO INCREASE ITS POTENTIAL

The SPA Industrial devices, established in 1956 as a SDO Oil-and-chemical and became a member of the new Ministry of defense industry in 2006 makes up the basis of instrument-making industry in Azerbaijan. The SPA has hundreds of new products under its belt for the semi-centennial activity period. To this very day the SPA is engaged in producing, introduction and output of the flowmeters, counters, batchers and signalling devices in wide range of spending and pressure for different liquids and gases, and for the aggressive products, too. Many devices produced and output by the association are unique and meeting the requirements of the world and don’t have any analogues in instrument making industry in the sphere of flowmeters. The general director of the SPA Industrial devices Babek Panahov answers Caspian Energy’s answers regarding instrument-making industry in Azerbaijan.

Caspian Energy (C.E.): Mr. Panahov, how do You estimate the SPA Industrial devices today’s activity?

Babek Panahov: Today the directing agency SDO Oil-and-chemical devices with an experienced plant and Ganja intrument-making plant, which outputs water-meters form parts of the SPA Industrial devices. At that water-meter production is also carried out in our SDO Oil-and chemical devices.

Today SDO Oil-and-chemical devices has new products both in the sphere of gas account, and water account, the devices are mastered and output at the directing agency. One of them is - gas-meters. Last year the Scientific-production association (SPA) Industrial devices won the tender held by the CJSC Azerigaz on gas-meters’ delivery and installation of "G2,5" and "G4,0" types. At first the tender implied delivery of 90 thousand gas-meters. But in the result the scope of order has been increased by 100 thousand units more. At the same time the SPA won the tender on delivering 22 thousand gas-meters for Nakhchivan Autonomic Republic. Thus, the total quantity of the meters that we delivered to CJSC Azerigas in 2005 made 212 thousand.

We organized all the works in the frames of SPA structure. The work on the corporation was held by German firm Cromshreider. And in 2005 we finished the work successfully, which was carried out on Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliev’s order and the Cabinet of minister’s commission.

The result of the work was prolonging the won tender, i.e. the agreement with CJSC Azerigas from 2005 to 2006. The CJSC Azerigas has already signed an agreement with us on delivering 444 thousand gas-meters of "G2,5" and "G4,0" types to Azerbaijan regions and Baku in 2006. We agreed with our componentry suppliers in November of the last year in order to provide timely deliveries. As a result, already in the beginning of January we have got the first consignment of componentry. On the totals of the first month of the current year we have delivered about 30 thousand meters to CJSC Azerigas and produced about 90 thousand.

C.E.: How is the efficiency of using the gas-meters produced by the SPA?

Babek Panahov: First of all, gas-meters are very important for accounting and controlling the gas that CJSC Azerigas sells to the people. Today the meters are installed stepwise and free of charge on Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliev’s instructions. Second - it is gas consumption saving, as when there is an account and a control - is causes saving actually and further redistribution of gas to the places where it fails. In other words the people regulate gas consumption for cutting down expenses, and the gas-meters don’t burn "idly". Third - it is increasing duties on paying for the used gas. Our investigations confirm the fact.

Nowadays we meet the people quite often who use statements such as "we are paying more", "the meter shows more" ore "the meter works when the devices are off".

I assure you that there is no truth! The fact is that before the people have been paying for gas "without any regulations, now the government gets the payment just for the used gas, and as a result the gas fees increases.

Heretofore there have been no problems on the quality of the devices. Individual questions have occurred, but we have proved and are proving that the devices are qualitative on our test equipment. The percent of defects is very low, and mainly occurs at the time of installation, incorrect exploitation, scales getting in through gas pipe, that can affect the work of the meters. But it is another problem, we are installing the meters for pure gas. As a whole our device are qualitative.

We have created a installation-service brigade which is engaged in meters installation along with the specialists of CJSC Azerigas. Today the brigade is working under the treaty with the CJSC within the precincts of Baku.

C.E.: What about the sale of water-meters?

Babek Panahov: There will be a tender on water-meters this year in Azebaijan. We know that water account is very important in water-sale process. Water-meters act as the gas-meters - it is a commercial account, economy spending and its further redistribution. Full account causes economy in fact, that solves the problems in the water deficit places.

We are preparing for the task and we’ll try to win the tender. The scope of deliveries will vary within 500 thousand water-meters in all probability. Today the SPA have prepared samples of water-meters cross section of which will be 15 and 20 mm, the tender will be held on them mainly.

Water-meters of "ACS" type, that we have worked up and Ganja instrument-making plant produced fully correspond to world level, ISO standards, and have entered Azerbaijan State list. We are already carrying out marketing on their sale in CIS countries.

C.E.: How is the SPA planning to provide services and raise the quality of the devices?

Babek Panahov: The SPA Industrial devices carries out works on perfecting gas and water-meters production technologies. For that we have purchased new multiple test equipment which are testing the meters hands off. We have provided places for rolling, pressure testing and testing - we created 60 extra new work places on gas-meters production in 2005 alone. And in March of this year we are planning to organize gas-meters repair - the work places will be created in Baku directly in the SPA at first, on the agreement with CJSC Azerigas. New work places will be created in some regions of Azerbaijan, mainly in Ganja, Sumgait, Ali-Bayramli, Lenkeran.

It is necessary to underline especially that we began to produce the first repair devices ourselves in 2005. Today the device for rolling of the meters bodies is functioning.

We are going to direct our efforts towards creating devices for gas, water and heat account. We always work the devices renewal.

We started works on the enterprise and product certification by means of Turkish and Russian classification societies in 2005. As a result we are planing to get certificates for the water-meters commercially produced in Ganja. Today we have a certificate of the firm Cromshreider, it is acknowledged by Governmental standards and is functioning. As a whole, we are planning to finish the SPA certification on ISO standard 9001:2000 in 2006.

C.E.: In the previous interview for Caspian Energy You have told that the SPA carries out design development, does the enterprise have any successes in this directions?

Babek Panahov: We keep our industrial relations with the partners on our traditional products. The SPA Industrial devices delivers supplies shipbuilding, aviation, atomic and other branches of RF industry with devices on its products. As You know, the SPA Industrial devices is specialized in flowmeter survey, i.e. these are devices for water and gas survey.

But Industrial devices has a potential, that can be enabled in other spheres. Today we are working on individual orders. Our products lay the foundation for all these, production of the new devices is the result of this.

The SPA produces new types of flowmeters for Russia in space sphere. These unique devices have no analogues in the world and proceed on concrete orders. I.e. we’ve kept our relations with our former partners on CIS, since the SPA has been considered leading association in this sphere. At the same time we have established respectful relations with our partners - compulsory filling of the qualitative orders.

As a whole we have established partnership relations between the consumer and the producer. According to the contract with Moscow Design Office of chemical engineering of RF we have finished the next stage of the concrete production.

For that we have produced new devices for batching mass doses of different liquids, error of which is ± 0,3% (for comparison: water-meters error - is over the range of ± 1,5-5%, and gas-meters over the range of ± 3%). These are high-quality technologies and have no analogues in the world.

Today we have finished works on three phases - technical project, work project and producing pre-production models. Then we expect orders to the Association for concrete consignment - the forth and last phase. At present we have already organized an order for 2006 with Russia.

C.E.: The SPA Industrial devices was a part of Azerbaijan State Committee on special machine-building and conversion which is reorganized, and a Ministry of defense industry has been established and the SPA is a part of it at the moment. How much have the task set Industrial devices changed?

Babek Panahov: Indeed, the SPA Industrial devices was a part of Azerbaijan State Committee on special machine-building and conversion, which is reorganized at the moment and a Ministry of defense industry has been established.

The SPA will be a part of the newly established ministry, and of course, will work on governmental plans and on the instructions of the ministry, i.e. we are going to solve important issues on establishing defense technology. The current potential of the SPA is enough for carrying out the works of our direction. Of course, if there are new instructions, new tasks - we will strengthen our potential - we have such opportunities, too.

Our enterprise is kept, and after being a part of the new ministry, I think, the SPA’s potential will strengthen only. Today we must increase our potential in order to carry out the authority’s instruction in proper time and on high level. The new ministry is established with the purpose to strengthen these processes, in order to produce new types of defense technology and armament. And all these require efforts, knowledge, force, specialists and finances.

Our subsequent task is to produce new products, move on them, repetition work, also working with related enterprises, both with native and foreign. We are also planning to raise the level of cadre potential.

As the scope of the work rises constantly, we raise wages. And we are planning to raise wages by 50% more in 2006. On the totals of 2005 540 thousand AZN has been transferred to the State budget as in the form of dues, to the social protectiona fund - 46,5 thousand AZN.

In view of the ministry establishment we are going to carry out a state program, where all our products will be taken into account, maybe, the assortment of the products will be extended. At the moment we are mainly producing devices for liquid and gas account, but our enterprise is able to carry out other tasks, as well, mainly production of electronic devices.

Besides delivering devices to RF enterprises, we are planning to export our products to CIS countries - to Ukraine, Georgia and Uzbekistan, Belarus and Moldova in future.