The Polarled Pipeline will export gas from the Aasta Hansteen field in the Norwegian Sea to the country’s Nyhamna gas plant.
The contracts have been awarded on behalf of the Polarled partners and are the result of a broadly based, competitive international tender between pre-qualified suppliers.
“The Norwegian Sea is an exciting area on the Norwegian continental shelf. Polarled underpins this. Establishing new infrastructure increases the opportunities for the discoveries already made, and at the same time paves the way for further exploration and the development of future discoveries,” Statoil’s head of Natural Gas Rune Bjørnson said recently.
As part of its contract, Wasco will establish a new concrete coating plant at Mo i Rana, in Northern Norway.
“Experienced local companies will provide services to Polarled such as goods from land, buildings, port services, construction, maintenance, logistics and raw materials for the production process. A requirement has been estimated for about 50 employees locally in Mo i Rana during the production period between now and 2015,” said Statoil’s Chief Procurement Officer Jon Arnt Jacobsen.
The order for steel, valued at approximately $US350.8 million, includes pipes, bends, and buckle arrestors. Pipe-laying is planned for 2015, and will involve around 325,000 tons of steel for the 482 km long pipeline. The 36 inch
diameter pipeline and will be laid to a maximum depth of 1,265 m, which will be the world’s deepest laying operation for this size of pipe.
The pipes will be shipped from the supplier in Japan to Malaysia, where flow coating on the inside and anti-corrosion coatings on the outside will be applied, following which the pipes will be shipped to Mo i Rana for the application of the protective external concrete weight coating, before they are stored until installation in 2015.
Preliminary engineering work has already started for the pipe-laying contract. It is planned that the pipeline installation will commence by pulling-in the pipe at the landfall at Nyhamna in March 2015, and will be completed with lay down at Aasta Hansteen in the third quarter of 2015.
The contracts awarded are subject to regulatory approval of the project, which is expected in the first half of 2013.
In late 2012 Statoil, together with the other partners in Polarled, submitted the plan for the line’s installation and operation to the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. The investment for the Polarled development is estimated at $US4.38 billion.