Report: Gazprom starts work on second string of TurkStream

Gazprom has reportedly started laying the second string of the Turkish Stream – or TurkStream – gas pipeline in the Black Sea.

The news was reported on Wednesday by Vedomosti, which said the Russian oil company had „silently“ started laying the second 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 second string on the bottom of the Black Sea.

The Audacia was also responsible for the pipelaying work at the shallow water section of the first 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 first 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 first line of the TurkStream offshore gas pipeline in the Black Sea, with an option for laying the second line, in December 2016. Then in February Allseas also inked a deal to build the second 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 five kilometers of pipelines a day at a depth of two 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.

Turkey then said the warplane had violated its airspace. The incident had led to the cooling of relations between the two countries. Currently, tensions between the two countries have eased off.

Offshore Energy Today staff