Successful completion of Nord Stream pipelaying programme
30 April 2012
On April 26, Nord Stream AG announced the successful completion of its complex international logistics program. According to Nord Stream, this "award-winning green logistics concept enabled the most efficient and environmentally-sound way" of supplying to the pipe-laying vessels the 200,000 24-ton concrete weight coated (CWC) pipes needed for Nord Stream's twin natural gas pipelines through the Baltic Sea.
Nord Stream pipelaying vessel Castoro Sei
Twelve-ton steel pipes were manufactured in Germany (140,000), Russia (50,000) and Japan (10,000), from where they were shipped directly to one of two CWC plants on the Baltic Coast and coated in concrete to double their weight for added stability and safety on the sea-bed.
Nord Stream says a key feature of its environmentally friendly logistics plan was the creation and use of a network of five strategically located logistics sites.
Two concrete-weight coating plants (at Kotka in Finland and Mukran in Germany) and three marshalling yards (Hanko in Finland and Slite and Karlskrona in Sweden) were established no further than 100 nautical miles from the route of the pipelines. This enabled the pipe-carrier vessels to make the round-trips to and from the three lay-barges within one day.
The last pipe transhipment to the pipelaying vessel Castoro Sei from the Swedish port of Slite took place in the week prior to the announcement.
The remaining pipes were then returned to the German port of Mukran, from where a small supply will be transhipped onward to Lubmin. These pipes will be stored there to provide for any possible contingencies during the planned 50 years' operating life of the pipelines.
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