BAKU, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
The Greek company Corinth Pipeworks has completed the production of 47 km line pipes for the route of the Greece-Bulgaria gas interconnector (IGB), Trend reports citing ICGB AD, the project company.
“The first batch consists of 32-inch in diameter line pipes with external three-layer polyethylene coating. Its delivery is scheduled for the first week of February as the pipes will be transported to storage bases along the IGB route in both Greece and Bulgaria,” said the company.
The length of the entire pipeline route is 183 km and a contract for the manufacture of nearly 185 km of line pipes has been signed.
Following a public procurement procedure under the Public Procurement Act (PPA), the contract was awarded to the Greek manufacturer Corinth Pipeworks. The production of the IGB line pipes is being carried out at the company's plant in Boeotia, Greece, with a production capacity of over 1 000 000 tons per year.
The production of line pipes for the purposes of the gas interconnector with Greece is divided into five batches. The route will be constructed both with longitudinal submerged arc-welded pipes and helical submerged arc-welded pipes. All pipes will be 32 inches in diameter, 12 m or 18 m in length, and will vary between 11 mm and 20 mm in thickness depending on the section of the route. 18 m line pipes of this type will be used for the first time in Bulgaria. The longer length provides a number of advantages, including optimization of welding costs and a faster installation process. Another proven benefit of using 18 m pipes is the significantly smaller number of maintenance areas during pipeline operation.
IGB is a gas pipeline, which will allow Bulgaria to receive Azerbaijani gas, in particular, the gas produced from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz 2 gas and condensate field. IGB is expected to be connected to TAP via which gas from the Shah Deniz field will be delivered to the European markets.
The Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria project envisages a two-stage development.
In the first stage, the pipeline capacity will be 3 billion cubic meters of gas, of which 2.7 billion cubic meters will be offered for the long-term market, the remaining share of 0.3 billion cubic meters in the short term.
In a second phase, also depending on the evolution of the market, the capacity of the pipeline can be increased to 5.3 billion cubic meters of gas thanks to the addition of a compression station: 4.5 billion cubic meters of gas 0.5 billion cubic meters of short-term gas will be offered for long-term products.
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