July 4 - Wasco Coatings Europe has awarded Blue Water Shipping a contract for the transport, handling and storage of 113,000 pipes for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Wasco was contracted by Nord Stream 2 AG for the concrete weight coating, storage and logistics of the 200,000 pipes required for the project, which will construct a 1,200 km pipeline through the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany.
Blue Water Shipping will be responsible for the sea transport of pipes from Wasco's facilities in Mukran, Germany and Kotka, Finland to storage yards in Karlshamn, Sweden and Hanko, Finland. The remaining 87,000 pipes will be shipped directly from the coating facilities to the pipelay vessels.
Under the contract, Blue Water Shipping will handle the loading of the pipes, transport to storage yards, the operation of the storage yards and loading the feeder vessels which will transfer the pipes to Allseas' pipelay vessels.
According to Blue Water Shipping, the transport of the pipes to the storage facilities will require approximately 475 shipments by coaster vessels.
Wasco will coat each of the 12 m steel pipes with concrete, doubling the weight to 24 tons (21.7 tonnes) per pipe on average, says Blue Water Shipping.
The project was awarded to Blue Water Shipping's head office in Denmark and will involve the company's local offices in Sweden, Finland and Germany, as well as local subcontractors in Sweden and Finland.
According to Henning Kothe, Nord Stream 2 project director, "This latest contract brings the total contractual commitments on the Nord Stream 2 project to over EUR4 billion (USD4.5 billion), involving more than 200 companies from 17 countries, most of them coming from Europe."
The first shipment of pipes is planned to commence in July.
