The NGKS was founded some 10 years ago at the onset of privatization in Russia. It was created to address, what was seen to be, an urgent need to upgrade an aging and somewhat neglected state owned and run oil and gas industry to current standards while at the same time dealing with this new reality of a rapidly expanding, dynamic and environmentally conscience privatized industry. Huge emphasis was placed on getting these valuable and much needed products to a thirsty domestic as well as global market, with as little downtime as possible. This meant, therefore, all the integrity issues associated with the operation of a pipeline had to be dealt with in a timely, prudent, safe, environmentally sound and cost effective manner. The operator of a pipeline system suddenly became, by default, an "asset manager" rather than simply the provider of underground facilities to move oil or gas from producer to consumer. The initial challenge was changing the old mindset of the operator to now realize that there was added value to be gained from inspection and subsequent repair of these facilities, as it meant a safer working environment for everyone and subsequently more product to market. The second challenge was the actual in-line inspection process itself. This required a totally different approach to tool design, not only did they have to function as data collectors but they also had to be able to negotiate and deal with the wide variety of construction practices and minimum maintenance activity that had been the norm during the building and operating of these older lines. These pipelines presented, and continue to present, some of the world's most difficult pipeline environs for the in-line-inspection company and their tools, but it is also where NGKS cut its teeth and was successful. The net result has been the development of a full compliment of rugged, yet sophisticated, versatile, reliable and well proven in-line inspection tools we market today. The NDT inspection techniques we employ are MFL and UT, both technologies having proven themselves through the years as witnessed by widespread industry acceptance and confidence. These technologies provide the best possible detection and characterization capabilities of any NDT technique for all forms of metal-loss, environmental cracking and production related anomalies.

We at NGKS are committed to maintaining a leadership position in the development and manufacture of inspection tools, techniques and technologies to meet the needs of the industry. We maintain a staff of more than 500 well educated scientists, engineers and technicians all trained in varying disciplines to service our customer's needs. We have our own Engineering/Manufacturing division for the production and prototyping of various complex and proprietary components. Our Analysis/Software group has developed and continues to refine our end-user friendly inspection data presentation software package that our customers receive with the "Final Report"

NGKS has inspected more than 60,000 kms since its inception and continues to grow. The future looks bright because as more and more of the world's economies are tied to energy production and transmission thus putting added strain on their existing infrastructure systems, some of which are reaching the end of their design life, new systems continue to be built. Pipeline Integrity Management has become the mantra of the industry with In-Line Inspection being a fundamental and very crucial element in achieving this end.