MARINE CIVILS
OSIL SUPPLIES BUOYS TO BALTIC PROJECT OSIL has supplied its advanced monitoring buoys to the Baltic Pipeline Project
8 Tunnel boring machine
Global marine systems manufacturer Ocean Scientific International Ltd (OSIL) has provided some of its lightweight repositional environmental monitoring buoys to be used in the Baltic Pipe Project. Seventeen 0.6m buoys will be in continual use to monitor the turbidity levels and other environmental conditions around the active dredging sites. ”Dredging activities are vital to the successful outcome of the project,” says OSIL. ”The buoys are very lightweight and easy to deploy, and on this project have been repositioned to follow the dredger movements and debris plume on an almost daily basis. “The relocations were undertaken by minimal crew on board the dredger support tug, using a grapnel to catch the buoys and the vessel’s handling system to lift the anchor weight and tow the buoy to its new position. DHI A/S reported that the crew were very happy with this arrangement.” The buoys have been delivered to DHI A/S, the software development and engineering consultancy firm headquartered in Denmark that is overseeing the project. The 275km gas pipeline sending natural gas from the North Sea to Poland is due to be completed this October, when at full capacity it will transfer 10 billion m3 a year through on and offshore pipes from Norway to Denmark and Poland, and 3 billion m3 a year from Poland to Denmark. It is being developed by Danish gas and electricity operator Energinet in combination with the Polish gas transmitter GazSystem, and has been recognised as ‘a project of common interest of the European Union’. The goal is to create a new gas supply corridor in the
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European market that will transport gas from Norway to the Danish and Polish markets as well as to end-users in neighbouring countries. Offshore, the pipe installed on the seabed crosses the marine areas of Denmark, Poland and Sweden in the North Sea. It consists of about 22,000 sections of pipe, each 12.2 metres long, welded together and now buried in or laid on top of the seabed. Italian firm Saipem was awarded the contract to transport and install the pipeline in the Baltic Sea. On-land works To lay the pipe on land, microtunnelling has been carried out – where the pipe is laid in concrete after tunnels are drilled beneath the seabed, beach and dunes. “Thanks to this method, the seashore and dunes have not been affected, and the project execution has not caused major restrictions to the use of the beach,” the project leaders say. As well as microtunnelling, three other methods of landfall construction were considered: open excavation, horizontal drilling and direct jacking. The pipe has been laid about 1.2 metres deep, and above has been restored, with just four visible elements of infrastructure on land: one in Demark, three in Poland. ”After its commissioning in 2022, fine particle emissions from buildings may be reduced by even 54% which, in turn, could save as many as 25 000 human lives a year, while the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by 70 million tonnes may contribute to 58% achievement of Poland’s 2030 target to reduce the emissions by 120 million tons,” the project leaders claim.
8 OSIL’s buoys are monitoring the dredging carried out in the Baltic Pipeline project
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