The Blue Stream project is the most significant result produced to date by the Strategic Alliance Agreement signed by Eni and Gazprom in 1998.
The project foresees the construction of a 376 km gas pipeline which will cross the Black sea, connecting the Russian and Turkish coasts, and the building of a compressor station in the Dzhubga area of Russia.
At the beginning, eight billion cubic meters of gas will flow per year through the pipeline, while capacity is expected to double by the year 2010.
The Blue Stream Pipeline Company BV, a Eni-Gazprom 50-50 company born in 1999, will finance, construct, own and manage the Blue Stream transportation system.
This company has signed a contract with Saipem SpA, Bouygues Offshore SA and a Japanese industrial consortium for the design, engineering, supply and construction of the offshore part of the pipeline.
The submarine works are a challenge to today's state of the art technologies. Two 24-inch pipes will be sent down along a steep sea ridge on the Russian coast, in the surroundings of Beregovaya, with maximum depths of 2150 meters, and will reemerge in the area of Samsun.
The submarine laying works will be carried out by Saipem, with its Saipem 7000 floating platform, which has recently been modified with a new J-type laying system.
Over and above the submarine laying problems, many other technical aspects must be solved, as the design of pipes able to withstand high underwater pressures, and the identification of materials resistant to the corrosion caused by the high concentration of hydrogen sulfide in the deep waters of the Black sea.
Pipeline repair and maintenance are difficult operations, and Saipem is one of the few international companies to be able to perform them with the use of automated robot systems.
The entire Blue stream project is underpinned by an inter-governmental Turkish-Russian agreement defined in 1997.
With the recent ratification by the Turkish Parliament of the Fiscal Protocol attached to the agreement (the Russians having already ratified it), the Blue Stream project has overcome the last parliamentary procedure necessary to obtain the “go-ahead” signal.
Source E.N.I
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
