At one of this year’s Wimbledon matches, a group of seniors interrupted the game to draw attention to the oil and gas industry’s environmental issues. The United States’ ecological problems are growing like snowballs. Vladislav Kireev, a well-known Russian businessman, offers turnkey and cost-effective solutions to improve the environments around petrochemical plants by reducing their emissions.
Vladislav Kireev, an industrial equipment expert and entrepreneur, has spent many years studying environmental pollution issues in the petrochemical industry and has developed technological solutions to address them. In 2012, he founded Iron Trade and Consulting in Russia, which combined his professional and personal ambitions.
The problem of ecology is not only relevant for Russia, but for the whole world. About 80% of Russian petrochemical enterprises require deep modernization and reconstruction. Most of them were constructed back in the Soviet era, and their cleaning systems have not seen updates. These issues have led to a significant and uncontrolled increase in harmful emissions into the atmosphere. A tangible threat has appeared not only for the environment, but also for the health of those inhabiting the regions in which large plants are located.
Kireev’s company has successfully upgraded several plants within Russia’s largest petrochemical complex, Nizhnekamskneftekhim PJSC. In a short time, the gas cleaning system—which was more than half a century old—was replaced with a modern one. Thanks to this update, harmful emissions into the atmosphere were reduced by more than 90%. Other industry leaders immediately took notice and adopted the same practice.
From the very beginning of its activity, Iron Trade and Consulting has been called upon to solve environmental issues and find ways to ensure the environmental safety of production. Vladislav believes that the petrochemical industry has been causing irreparable damage to the environment throughout the world for many years. Modernization can undoubtedly reverse this situation.
In the US, the environmental situation is also quite challenging. On one hand, the country has much smaller territories and swaths of green spaces—or “green lungs”—compared to Russia. On the other hand, its leading pace of development made the States a victim of their own industrialization. The ecological situation is approaching critical levels in some places.
At the state level, concern for the ecology of the United States is situational. Environmental decisions are made or overturned depending on the political leader and public opinion. There are no long-term environmental protection programs.
“The United States is allocating huge financial resources to the development of clean energy technologies. They certainly need to be implemented. However, it is impossible not to note the existing risks in the absence of an alternative to green technologies,” Kireev notes. “That is why, in parallel with the development of clean energy, it is necessary to modernize existing industries.”
In order to encourage economic development, increasing amounts of new energy resources are required. Raising energy capacities will inevitably lead to new environmental cataclysms. A set of measures to protect the environment, including the introduction of equipment developed by Vladislav Kireev, will improve the environmental situation in certain areas. With its successful history, this technology would be a cost-effective and quickly implemented solution for the country’s economy.
Kireev notes that the oil and gas industry’s tasks and priorities cannot be immediately shifted to green technologies. Therefore, the modernization of existing industries is the best option for solving environmental problems without investing large amounts of money and building new enterprises from scratch.
Kireev’s business model is easily applicable in any country. In Russia, the entrepreneur has created a scientific, technical, and production base. His company does not require huge areas, but rather relies on outsourcing. Reliable contractors manufacture and install equipment that can be integrated into existing production. The businessman controls each stage of work personally and leads the development team himself.
In Russia, one can already see a positive trend in the reduction of exhaust gases from stationary enterprises in the oil and gas industry. From 2017 to 2022, harmful emissions from oil and natural gas production decreased by almost 10%. Harm to the atmosphere in the metallurgical industry has decreased by almost 30%. Steady positive dynamics is also due to the re-equipment of enterprises with modern equipment, mainly in large plants.
Vladislav Kireev notes that, for any country, the position of the state becomes a fundamental factor in the rapid modernization of production. The main task is to develop a model at the legislative level that will encourage enterprises to engage in modernization. Currently, all costs are borne by the enterprises themselves. Kireev believes that the state needs to subsidize these costs, or enterprises will continue to minimize investment in equipment upgrades.
Failing to limit environmental destruction is unacceptable, the entrepreneur believes. In his opinion, strategic interaction between leaders of industrial sectors and specialized state committees should be established in the United States. “It is necessary to develop a map of planned modernization and retrofitting of gas cleaning systems, first at the largest, and then at other US enterprises,” concluded Kireev.
