The construction of Line 1 of the Nord Stream Pipeline is progressing on schedule, and it will start transporting gas from Russia to customers in the European Union in late 2011.
Using three pipelay vessels and a flotilla of support ships, the Nord Stream consortium’s partners have constructed and laid more than 600 km of pipe.
Saipem’s Castoro Sei pipelay vessel started construction in April 2010 in the Swedish Exclusive Economic Zone off Gotland, laying pipe in an easterly direction into Finnish waters before moving on to Russian waters, where it laid sections of both pipelines and participated in the shore-pull at Portovaya Bay, near Vyborg.
Castoro Sei then moved south to pick up another section of the first pipeline in German waters where Saipem’s flat-bottomed Castoro Dieci had completed – ahead of schedule – the difficult 27 km shallow-water section of both pipelines at the German landfall.
Meanwhile at the other end of the pipeline route, the world’s largest pipelay vessel, Allseas’ 300 m long Solitaire, has reached the Finnish EEZ after laying a key section in Russian waters. It had picked up the pipe where Castoro Sei had completed the first 7.5 km in the Russian landfall section.
Nord Stream’s twin pipelines will consist of 202,000 concrete weight coated pipes, each 12 metres long and with an average weight of 23 t.
When both lines are completed in 2012, they will transport 55 Bcm/a.