GSP Offshore’s pipelay vessel Bigfoot-1 has connected the offshore and onshore sections of Gazprom’s new Dzhubga – Lazarevskoye – Sochi gas pipeline in the Russian sector of the Black Sea.
Offshore staff
MOSCOW – GSP Offshore’s pipelay vessel Bigfoot-1 has connected the offshore and onshore sections of Gazprom’s new Dzhubga – Lazarevskoye – Sochi gas pipeline in the Russian sector of the Black Sea.
The vessel performed a tie-in which involved welding two sections of line near the Kudepsta settlement. Similar work was performed earlier near the town of Tuapse, and the settlements of Dzhubga and Novomikhailovsky.
The Tuapse – Kudepsta section will be tested in the second half of 2011, including landfalls. The Dzhubga – Tuapse section has already been tested.
The Russian Federation government approved construction of the new gas line, partly to secure reliable energy supplies to Sochi, which will host the Winter Olympic Games in 2014, but also to advance gasification in the Tuapse District.
The 177-km (110-mi) pipeline will include a 159.5-km (99 mi) offshore section, the route running parallel with the Black Sea coast line (around 4.5 km, or 2.8 mi, offshore) to the Kudepsta gas distribution station near Sochi.
It will have annual throughput capacity of 3.8 bcm (134 bcf).
