Saipem contract brings back into focus the longest and deepest Mediterranean gas pipeline from Libya to Italy
Saipem, the Italian engineer for LNG, oil and pipeline gas subsea contracts, has been chosen to ensure the supervision and any subsea intervention services for the GreenStream gas pipeline linking Libya to Italy and the longest and deepest pipeline ever laid in the Mediterranean Sea.
GreenStream BV, a joint venture comprising Italian oil and gas major Eni and the Libyan National Oil Corporation, awarded the work to Saipem.
The GreenStream system conveys natural gas from coastal facilities at Mellitah in Libya to Gela on the Italian island of Sicily.
Libya is a former LNG exporter but the Marsa el Brega LNG export plant was destroyed during the years of conflict in the North African nation.
The LNG facility was the third to start operations in 1970, after Alaska and Algeria, and exported 3.2 million tonnes per annum from four liquefaction Trains.
As part of the broader and revived Western Libyan Gas Project, GreenStream connects the Mellitah Compression Station, on the Libyan coast, with the receiving terminal in Gela in Sicily where Libyan gas arrives from two fields.
Libyan gas fields
The first gas field, Bahr Essalam, is offshore the Libyan coast and the second, the Wafa gas field, is located in the Libyan desert near the border with Algeria.
The Libya-Italy Mediterranean pipeline has a diameter of 32-inches and is around 520 kilometres (323 miles) long.
GreenStream crosses points near Malta and with waters depths reaching 1,127 metres.
The Gas Compression Station at Mellitah (MGCS) is beside the Gas Treatment Plant that compresses the gas to be exported and up to the pressure required for the entering the Italian Gas Transport Network.
Asset integrity
The latest contract awarded by GreenStream to Saipem is renewing a work programme in force since 2008 that included asset integrity, inspection, maintenance and emergency pipeline services.
“The activities will be managed by Saipem’s center of excellence for robotics, underwater technologies and services, and executed in coordination with the Saipem Engineering Hub located in Fano in Italy,” Saipem added.
“The scope of work streamlines the integrated management of survey data and critical spares, the provision of specialized engineering services related to asset integrity and readiness services for repair interventions in case of a wide range of damage scenarios,” Milan-based Saipem added.
Specifically, repair interventions in case of damage will be performed via a remotely operated repair system and qualified to operate in water depths of up to 2,200 metres.
“With this award Saipem will contribute to managing the integrity of a fundamental underwater infrastructure for the Italian energy supply system,” the company added.
“It also consolidates the long-term cooperation between Saipem and GreenStream BV, which in 2002 awarded the company a contract for the pipelaying of the said pipeline, a project thanks to which Saipem achieved the record for the deepest pipe-laying with anchors,” Saipem concluded.
