One more gas pipeline was put into operation in the Kara Sea. It crossed the Gulf of Ob, connecting two peninsulas - Yamal and Gydan, linking the Novoportovskoye oil and gas condensate field with the Yamburg-Tula gas pipeline. This is not an ordinary event - a regional industrial megaproject worth one and a half billion rubles is being implemented. But first, it's worth mentioning this: in the Arctic Ocean, laying pipes in shallow water is the most difficult engineering task which involves a lot of risks.
The Yamal Peninsula is the center of light hydrocarbon reserves. The first place in terms of volume is occupied by the Bovanenkovskoye field, which has the status of an energy source of world importance. Back in the Soviet years, when they spoke of drilling out as a distant prospect, gas producers were thinking about options for transporting the product in the western direction - towards Komi and further to the border with Europe. Bovanenkovo is located almost in the middle of the peninsula. They refused to pull the pipe from here along the tundra to the Polar Urals, having decided to straighten and shorten the path to the city of Ukhta (there is a connection with a transnational export gas pipeline there), passing through the waters of the Baydaratskaya Bay.
It is over 70 kilometers by sea to the mainland, on a conditional diagonal. But the distance is nothing compared to the working conditions and the intolerable nature of the water area. The sea is free of ice for a maximum of four months a year, but since it is stormy every now and then, in fact, the time for the departure of specialized vessels was limited to 1.5-2 months. Not coincidentally, the "crazy idea" was born to lay pipes in winter, cutting through the ice under the strings prepared for immersion. Of course, they dropped the idea. The pipes should not just be on the bottom, but be submerged in the bottom soil. After all, the depths are sometimes a few meters here. The pipeline can also be touched by a stray ice floe.
A whole flotilla was involved with a super-powerful tug, barges, scows, various types of dredgers, hydrographic vessels, and a detachment of divers. An impressive diameter pipes with thick, almost three-centimeter walls, designed for a pressure of 120 atmospheres, were immersed in the bay. For greater weight - in a concrete shell. In the last decade, four submarine branches were put into operation, including a reserve one. Their total length is nearly 290 kilometers.
Alas, it was not without engineering miscalculations: first, one section of the pipeline surfaced, remaining intact, followed by a second. They will have to be "drowned" again, hidden in bottom trenches up to five meters deep. And this is capital work and capital spending.
The pipe should not thaw frozen rocks and disturb marine life with noise, vibration, electromagnetic radiation.
The gas pipeline across the Gulf of Ob, which was solemnly launched last week, joins the pipeline running from Yamburgskoye, the famous giant field. What is the intent? In the southern zone of the Yamal Peninsula, 30 kilometers from the east coast, Gazprom Neft is stepping up production at a large oil and gas condensate field - Novoportovskoye. The oil is loaded onto tankers and they follow the Northern Sea Route towards Europe. The shortest and optimal way to deliver gas to the transport network of the state-owned company is across the bay. The length of the designed pipeline with an annual capacity of 20 billion cubic meters is really relatively short - about 116 kilometers. But exactly half is underwater. The device of the latter required the involvement of over 50 ships and hundreds of workers.
The Gulf of Ob is also distinguished by its violent temper. All its specific characteristics, as well as environmental requirements, were taken into account by the designers, the investor assures, and the pipe "will definitely not kick up." It is laid in a trench five meters deep, has a "cold" structure, that is, it should not thaw frozen rocks. And also - do not disturb the marine life, especially valuable spawning fish stocks, with noise, vibration, electromagnetic radiation. By the way, to add, the above-ground part of the branch is not an overpass - it is hidden in the ground, which will allow, after reclamation, to return the territory to reindeer husbandry, that is, to make it agricultural.
The oil production company will not be limited to gas transportation. The next stage of the project is the construction of a condensate, natural and associated gas processing plant near the development wells.
Source: RG.RU