Offshore staff

SAN DONATO MILANESE, Italy -- Saipem has won three pipelay jobs in Europe and West Africa with a collective value of €700 million euro.

In the western Mediterranean, UTE ACS Cobra Castor has awarded Saipem the offshore construction contract for a gas pipeline associated with the Castor underground gas storage development project. This involves compression, transportation, storage, production, treatment and re-injection of natural gas into Spanish national grid.

Saipem will lay a 30-in. (76-cm) diameter pipeline, around 22 km (13.7 mi) in length, from Vinaroz in mainland Spain to the offshore field, where it installed a wellhead platform this August. The work will be performed between end-2011 and early 2012.

In the Baltic Sea, Nord Stream AG has broadened the scope of Saipem’s contract for laying the parallel 1,220-km (758-mi) long Nord Stream gas pipelines between Vyborg, Russia and Greifswald, Germany.

The extension takes in rock placement, dredging and backfilling, and testing and pre-commissioning. Saipem started pipelay in April 2010 with the vessels Castoro Sei and Castoro 10. The first line is due to be completed during the first half of 2011, with laying of the second line scheduled for 2011-2012.

Finally, Saipem has been awarded a subcontract for the “critical crude pipeline replacement project” offshore Nigeria.

The scope comprises fabrication, transportation, installation and testing of the six replacement pipe lines (diameters ranging from 10-24 in., or 25.4-61cm), with a total length of 85 km (52.8 mi), that connect six platforms on an offshore field.

Marine activities will be executed between late 2010 and spring 2011, mainly using the Crawler vessel.

10/21/2010