Oil

Saipem to provide subsea intervention services for the Libya-Italy gas pipeline

The group will provide integrated inspection engineering, maintenance and emergency management services on the GreenStream pipeline

by Finance Review

18 July 2024

Innovator, uno dei veicoli sottomarini Saipem pilotati da una postazione remota

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Key points

The GreenStream pipeline
Saipem's underwater business

2' min read

Saipem was awarded a contract to provide surveillance and subsea intervention services for the GreenStream pipeline along the offshore and onshore sections at the terminals in Mellitah, Libya, and Gela, Sicily.

The new contract, awarded by GreenStream BV, one of the leading midstream operators in the Mediterranean Sea, combines the activities that Saipem has performed for GreenStream since 2008 on pipeline integrity, inspection, maintenance and emergency management services, and extends them to cover a wider range of scenarios and customer needs.

The activities will be managed by Sonsub, Saipem's centre of excellence for robotics, underwater technologies and services, and performed in coordination with the Saipem Engineering Hub located in Fano, in the province of Pesaro.

The work will optimise the integrated management of inspection data and critical spares, the provision of specialised engineering services for asset integrity, and emergency response services for restoration in the event of a wide range of damage scenarios. Specific damage recovery interventions will be carried out through SiRCoS technology, a remote repair system industrialised by Sonsub and qualified to operate in water depths of up to 2,200 metres.

"With this award," said a note, "Saipem will contribute to managing the integrity of a key subsea infrastructure for Italy's energy supply with an integrated approach, thus confirming the company's leadership in the underwater dimension with immediately available and effective solutions.

The GreenStream pipeline

The 516 km long GreenStream (Libyan Gas Transmission System - LGTS) pipeline connects Mellitah in Libya with Gela in Sicily, and was installed by Saipem. As part of the wider 'Western Libyan Gas Project', GreenStream connects with the receiving terminal at Gela in Sicily (the entry point into the national gas pipeline network) the Mellitah Compression Station on the Libyan coast, where Libyan gas from two fields arrives. The first, Bahr Essalam, offshore 110 kilometres from the Libyan coast; the second, Wafa, located in the Libyan desert near the border with Algeria.

The GreenStream pipeline is the longest subsea pipeline in the Mediterranean Sea and with this project Saipem has set the record for the deepest laying with anchorages. In order to operate in deep water, specific modifications were made to the pipelaying vessel Castoro Sei and to the vessel's entire mooring system.

Saipem's underwater business

Saipem is a leader in the underwater sector, which has been its core business for 65 years: it was the first company in the world to operate over 3,850 metres deep with robots controlled from the surface for oil recovery operations from the stricken tanker Prestige (Repsol, 2002) and is the first company in the world to have qualified submarine drones for intervention and inspection activities down to a depth of 3,000 metres. The group has so far installed more than 32,000 kilometres of pipelines on the seabed, almost around the circumference of the Earth, as well as having set the record for the deepest installation (Blue Stream, 2004), installed the longest subsea pipeline (Nord Stream, 2010) and installed all the gas transport backbones to Italy: Transmed (pipeline 'Enrico Mattei', 1983), Greenstream (2003), TAP (2019)