30 pct of Turkish Stream offshore construction completed: Company

ISTANBUL

Some 30 percent of the offshore construction of the Turkish Stream Pipeline has been completed, the project company announced in a statement on Nov. 29.

It took less than seven months to complete 30 percent of the offshore construction, it added.

According to the statement, the total length of the two deep sea lines under the Black Sea reached 555 kilometers.

Russian gas company Gazprom’s South Stream Transport began the construction of the gas pipeline in the Black Sea near the Russian coast on May 7.

The first pipeline of the Turkish Stream Offshore Gas Pipeline entered Turkey’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) on Nov. 4.

Pioneering Spirit, the world’s largest pipe-laying and construction vessel, marked the occasion by laying on the seabed the section of the pipeline with Russian and Turkish flags, symbolizing the crossing of the EEZ border between the two countries.

The ship has been carrying out its works some 2,191 meters deep in the sea and lays 4 kilometer-long pipe per day, according to the statement.

The two pipelines will come ashore in Turkey near the town of Kıyıköy, which is located approximately 100 kilometers west of Istanbul.

The first gas is expected to flow through the pipeline in December 2019.

Each of two lines will have the throughput capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters of gas per year.