A giant Puzzle  

 

The Langeled pipeline will take the gas from Aukra, when the valves open in October 2007, to Easington via Sleipner.

It will be the world’s longest subsea pipeline measuring no less than 1200 kilometers. An ordinary scheduled flight would take two hours to cover this distance.

The laying itself required the world’s pipelaying capacity. A massive one million tonnes of steel, one million tonnes of concrete and 25,000 tonnes of reinforcing rods were required to make the huge pipeline.

The pipes are made of carbon steel and the walls are 25 – 34 mm thick. They are built to last a long time, as they will be supplying Britain with gas from Ormen Lange for fifty years.

In July 2004, Bredero Shaw commenced the task of preparing the 100,000 pipe sections. Each single one had to be painted internally to prevent corrosion. Then, they were weight-coated with asphalt and concrete to prevent them from floating up when the gas sets out on its long journey to British cookers and stoves.

Måløy was used as a storage area for the pipes. 60 000 pipes had to be stored at three places in Norway and England.

Getting all the sections in place on time was a logistical challenge. Every four days, ships arrived from Japan and Europe with new piles of 12-meter long pipes. Once the pipes were completed, 60,000 pipes had to be temporarily stored in Hartlepool on the east coast of England, at Måløy and on the Sotra base.

Four Norwegian shipping companies were involved in the transportation of the pipes between Farsund, the temporary storage sites and finally out to the laying vessels.

However, treating the pipes also posed a major challenge in terms of HSE: each pipe of twenty tonnes had to be lifted at least 20 times! Each of the two million lifts required the complete concentration of the people on the facility in Farsund and out on the ships.

 As the building contractor, the StatoilHydro team was responsible for following up the safety work. Close cooperation between the team and between 300 – 400 employees produced encouraging results. In fact some of the best we have ever had for this type of operation, says Leif Solberg project director for Langeled