How it started
History
The organization was established on 17 June 1949 and was primarily called the All-Union Research and Design Institute of Underground Coal Gasification or VNIIPodzemgaz (Russian: Всесоюзный научно-исследовательский и проектный институт подземной газификации углей, or ВНИИПодземгаз). It was created from the Laboratory of Underground Gasification of the All-Union Gas Research Institute (Russian: ВНИГИ), and developed technologies of underground coal, oil shale and petroleum gasification.
The first director of VNIIPodzemgaz was Andrey Chernyshov. Under his direction, the basis of technology of underground coal gasification was developed and awarded the Stalin prize. In 1954, technicians of VNIIPodzemgaz made hydraulic fracturing of the coal-bed for the first time in the world.
In 1964, VNIIPodzemgaz was renamed as the All-Union Research and Designed Institute of Industrial Gasification or VNIIPromgaz (Russian: ВНИИПромгаз).
Central Asian branch in Tashkent (Uzbekistan)
Three plants for making gas-powered equipment: - Kamensk-Shakhtinsky (Russia)- Fastov (Ukraine)- Leninabad (now Qanliko‘l, Uzbekistan)
From Wikipedia’s article on Gazprom Promgaz, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2