TurkStream Line 1 completed
RELEASE
Release
Today at the Black Sea coast of Turkey, the deep-water pipelay for Line 1 of the TurkStream offshore gas pipeline has been completed.
The average rate of the deep-water pipelay carried out by the pipelaying vessel Pioneering Spirit was 4.3 kilometers per day. The maximum pipelaying rate – 5.6 kilometers per day – was reached twice in February 2018.
In accordance with the schedule, the project is being simultaneously implemented on shore in Russia and Turkey and in the Black Sea. The receiving terminal is being constructed near the settlement of Kiyikoy, Turkey. Upon completion of the landfall sections the works on the first line will be completed. Following the works schedule, Pioneering Spirit will continue the deep-water pipelay of Line 2 in the third quarter of 2018.
“Implementation of the TurkStream project carries forward successfully. We have reached an important milestone – the completion of Line 1. Progress is moving at a high rate. Since May 7, 2017, when we started the pipelaying campaign, the total of 1,161 kilometers of pipes has been laid, which is 62 per cent of the overall gas pipeline length. Needless to say, TurkStream will play a significant role in strengthening energy security of Turkey and Europe,” said Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Management Committee of Gazprom.
Background
TurkStream is the project for a gas pipeline stretching across the Black Sea from Russia to Turkey and further to Turkey's border with neighboring countries. The first line of the gas pipeline is intended for the Turkish consumers, while the second line is designated for the Southern and South-Eastern Europe. Each line will have the throughput capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters of gas per year. South Stream Transport B.V., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gazprom, is responsible for the construction of the gas pipeline's offshore section that started on May 7, 2017.
Turkey is Gazprom's second largest export market. Currently, Russian gas is delivered to Turkey via the Blue Stream gas pipeline and the Transbalkan Corridor. In 2017, Gazprom supplied the record 29 billion cubic meters of gas to the Turkish market. This is 4.3 billion cubic meters (17.3 per cent) more than in 2016 and 1.7 billion cubic meters (6.2 per cent) more than in 2014, when the previous maximum of 27.3 billion cubic meters was achieved.