Page 7 - Euroil Week 10 2020

EurOil PIPELINES & TRANSPORT EurOil
NS2 pipelaying vessel bound for Egypt
RUSSIA
The Akademik Cherskiy previously set courses for Singapore and Sri Lanka.
THE Akademik Cherskiy pipelaying vessel that Russia has indicated will complete the Nord Stream 2 pipeline has set a course for the Egyp- tian port of Suez, data published by Vessel Finder shows, suggesting its final destination is Europe.
Akademik Cherskiy’s estimated time of arrival in Egypt is March 25. According to Platts Analytics, from there it would take the vessel two months to reach Danish waters.
Swiss-based Allseas halted work on the 55bn cubic metre per year Nord Stream 2 in late December after the US implemented new sanc- tions threatening measures against contractors involved in its construction. This left 160 km of the total 2,460-km length of the pipeline’s two strings still to be completed.
Platts Analytics estimates it will take the Akademik Cherskiy two months to finish laying the pipeline, and a further few months for Gaz- prom to commission it.
“Therefore we forecast first flows on Nord Stream 2 in Q4-20, with a ramp-up to full capac- ity by Q2-21,” Platts gas analyst Ornela Figuri- nate commented on March 5.
In early January Russian President Vladimir Putin said the pipeline would be completed without international assistance and would become operational by the first quarter of 2021.
Russia’s oil and gas industry relies heav- ily in many areas on foreign equipment and
technology. One such area is offshore pipelay- ing. In 2016, Gazprom bought the Chinese-built Akademik Cherskiy to be used as a last resort if European contractors stopped working on Nord Stream 2 because of sanctions.
After working at fields off the coast of Sakha- lin Island, Akademik Cherskiy left the Far East- ern port of Nakhodka, bound for Singapore. It then changed its course to the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo, and had been due to arrive there on February 22.
Gazprom on February 10 awarded a contract for the installation of welding and technical equipment on the vessel, which suggested that the purpose of its trip to the Asia-Pacific area was to receive upgrades. Both Singapore and Colombo have shipyards, but NewsBase cannot confirm these upgrades took place.
Russia does have other pipelaying vessels, including Fortuna, owned by Russian contrac- tor MRTS and already stationed in the Baltic Sea. Despite having previously worked on Nord Stream 2’s Russian section, Fortuna is seen as unsuitable to complete the pipeline because it can only lay a maximum of 1 km of pipeline per day. It also lacks dynamic positioning capabil- ity. Denmark granted a construction permit for Nord Stream 2 on the assumption that a vessel with dynamic positioning capability would be used. ™
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