Gazprom has reportedly started laying the 2nd string of the Turkish Stream in the Black Sea. The news was reported on July 19, 2017, by Vedomosti, which said the Russian oil company had «silently» started laying the 2nd string of the pipeline which will carry Russian gas to Turkey.
The newspaper cited an unnamed official, who said the Allseas-owned Audacia vessel had already laid some 20-25 km of the pipelines 2nd string on the bottom of the Black Sea.
The Audacia was also responsible for the pipelaying work at the shallow water section of the 1st string of the pipeline which had started in May 2017.
The Pioneering Spirit, the world’s largest pipelay and construction vessel Pioneering Spirit, took over late in June, to carry out the deepwater pipelaying operations at the 1st string of the project.
The start of deepwater operations was symbolically launched by Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia.
The twin-hulled, 382 meters long and 124 meters wide vessel was in December 2016 awarded a contract to lay the 1st line of the TurkStream offshore gas pipeline in the Black Sea, with an option for laying the 2nd line, in December 2016. Then in February Allseas also inked a deal to build the 2nd string of the TurkStream gas pipeline’s offshore section.
The pipelines will enter the water near Anapa, on the Russian coast, and come ashore on the Turkish coast some 100 kilometers west of Istanbul, near the village of Kiyikoy.
Pioneering Spirit – one of the largest ships in the world – can lay 5 kilometers of pipelines a day at a depth of 2 kilometers.
Each string of TurkStream will have the throughput capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters of gas per year.
To remind, Russia’s and Turkey’s energy ministers signed an agreement to go ahead with construction of the pipeline back in October 2016.
This marked the resumption of works on the TurkStream pipeline project which was suspended after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane in 2015.
The incident had led to the cooling of relations between the 2 countries. Currently, tensions between the 2 countries have eased off.
To read the full story in Russian.
