man in orange overall watching offshore pipelay
The TurkStream Pipeline project involves the construction of a 910km offshore natural gas pipeline and a 180km onshore gas pipeline to transport natural gas from Russia’s large gas reserves to Turkey’s gas transportation network, in order to provide energy to Turkey and south-east Europe.
The project has been conceived to replace an older gas delivery system that runs through Ukraine, and provide a direct connection to Russian gas reserves. A lack of investments and modernisation over the years have rendered the existing system unreliable.
Starting from the Russian coast near the town of Anapa, the offshore section of the new pipeline will traverse the Black Sea at depths as low as 2,200m and emerge onshore in Turkey’s Thrace region. Being constructed by OAO Gazprom in collaboration with South Stream Transport, the offshore component is touted to be the biggest offshore pipeline ever to be laid at such low depths.
The pipeline capacity was initially planned to be 63 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas, but was later halved to 32bcm a year. Expected to be constructed by December 2016, gas produced from the first string is meant exclusively for Turkish markets.
The Shwe Natural Gas project consists of the Shwe, Shwe Phyu and Mya offshore gas fields in the Bay of Bengal.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between Gazprom and Turkish company Botas Petroleum Pipeline Corporation in December 2014 for the construction of the offshore gas pipeline extending from Russia to Turkey across the Black Sea.
In June 2015, A permit was issued by Turkish authorities for conducting engineering surveys for the offshore section.
Greece and Russia signed a memorandum of co-operation pertaining to the construction and operation of the pipeline on Greek territory, in the same month.
The construction started in May 2015, with Gazprom being responsible for constructing the offshore section, whereas the Turkish gas transportation facilities will be jointly developed.