Baltic Pipe: offshore gas pipeline has reached landfall in Poland

The offshore part of the Baltic Pipe gas pipeline has reached landfall in Poland, gas transmission system operator Gaz-System said on Monday. The gas pipeline was pulled through a tunnel from the Castoro Sei pipeline laying unit.

The last section of the gas pipeline, welded from successive pipes on a semi-submersible barge, was gradually pulled by a 1.5 km long steel cable with a diameter of 119 mm ashore near Pogorzelica.

As Gaz-System reminded, in the coastal area the gas pipeline was pulled inside a pre-prepared 800m long and 2m deep trench. A tunnel with a diameter of about 2 metres and a length of about 600 metres was dug under the beach and the cliff.

Thanks to the application of the microtunneling technology, the gas pipeline was laid under the beach and the cliff, ensuring no visual interference with the coastline and the investment’s surroundings on land, emphasised Gaz-System.

After welding together the ends of the gas pipeline section that was pulled onto the Polish shore, only the section off the coast of Danish Zeeland will be built on the Baltic Sea. Gaz-System is also responsible for this part of the construction.

The entire construction of the “Polish” part of the Baltic Pipe will be completed by the end of the year – Gaz-System CEO Tomasz Stępień has recently assured.

Baltic Pipe is a strategic project that will create a new route for natural gas supplies from Norway to the Danish and Polish markets and to end users in neighbouring countries. The pipeline will be able to transport 10 bcm of natural gas per year to Poland and 3 bcm from Poland to Denmark. The route is to be ready for gas transmission on October 1, 2022. The investors are the transmission operators: Danish Energinet and Polish Gaz-System.

In the headline, photos from an earlier stage of the Baltic Pipe construction – the end of laying the offshore pipeline: the deck of the offshore supply vessel (PSV) Sar Brage of the ship owner Hoyland Offshore AS with the last batch of pipes being delivered to the Castoro Sei pipe-laying vessel and the last section being laid on the slipway (the so-called stinger) of the pipeline laying vessel.