Russian Authorities Panicked Over Gas Cylinders

26.06.2025, 14:43
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They decided to count them all over the country.

A unified register of gas cylinders and a system of their labeling may appear in Russia amid a multiple increase in the number of people killed and injured in gas explosions, writes The Moscow Times.

The corresponding proposal of the State Duma was supported by the Ministry of Energy, Izvestia reported.

The digital system will contain information about produced, sold and utilized gas cylinders, according to a letter from Minister Sergey Tsivilev to the head of the Duma Committee on Energy Nikolai Shulginov. Also, the agency to ensure safety proposes to create a self-regulatory organization (SRO) to control the turnover of cylinders, the number of which "on hand" in Russians reaches 50 million. 37.5 million of them have worked out their useful life and came into improper condition, said the deputy head of the committee Yuri Stankevich.

According to the company "Gas Vector", only for 2022 in the country in explosions of gas cylinders killed 149 people and suffered 1,237 people. In 2013, those numbers were 17 and 122 injured, respectively. Compared to 2012, the number of emergencies with such equipment has increased 8.5 times: in 2024 there were 488 incidents (of which 72 explosions - in apartment buildings), reported the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI).

The representative of the CCI Andrey Shirokov said that the chamber proposed the idea of a register of gas cylinders back in 2017. According to him, in Russia it is necessary to give control over the circulation and quality of liquefied gas cylinders to the state in the form of one of the federal authorities. At the same time, business will bear the cost of developing and implementing a unified digital accounting system, he noted.

"Gas, traumatic, hunting weapons are under state control. Automobile, motorized vehicles - sources of increased danger are also under the supervision of the state. Why should tens of millions of gas cylinders be accounted for by a public organization in the form of an SRO? Professional market participants do not understand this," Shirokov stressed.

The Chamber of Commerce and Industry has been using for more than six years at a number of enterprises a program for accounting of gas cylinders, which registers the movement of equipment and monitors its technical condition, the expert noted. Owners of cylinders, if the authorities decide to scale this experience to the whole country, will be able to simply come with a cylinder to refuel, where it will be registered in the database.

The State Duma and the Ministry of Energy believe that self-regulation will make it possible to respond more quickly and flexibly to changes in the industry, as well as to avoid bureaucratic delays and reduce the cost of obtaining permits and certification of gas-fueled vehicles. According to Izvestia's interlocutors, the issue of a scheme to regulate the turnover of gas cylinders has not yet been resolved.

Gas cylinder explosions occur regularly in Russia. The latest such incident happened on the night of June 26 in the town of Ivdel in the Sverdlovsk region. The cylinder exploded in the apartment of one of the five-story buildings, resulting in a fire. "According to preliminary data, as a result of the incident two people died - a man and a woman," - reported in the regional Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Another seven people were injured, four of them were taken to the hospital.

One more person died and at least four - were injured due to the explosion of a cylinder in the apartment of a nine-story building in the north of Moscow on June 22. On the same day, five more people were injured in a domestic gas explosion in a five-story building in the city of Serov in the Sverdlovsk region.

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Russian Authorities Panicked Over Gas Cylinders

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