Russian experience - Caspian Pipeline Nears Completion -

By Atbir, Daniel
Publication: Underground Construction
Date: Monday, January 1 2001

Over the 460-mile route, the pipeline crosses rivers, canals, roads and railways. Twenty-three conventional open cut main river crossings and 11 horizontal directionally drilled (HDD) crossings were executed by contractors working directly for the client.
Work is winding down on the long awaited Caspian Pipeline that will connect western Kazakhstan to the Russian Black Sea Port of Novorossiysk. The pipeline will allow maximum development of the Tenzig field, which potentially holds six to nine million barrels of recoverable oil reserves.
The CPC that will ultimately own and operate the 460-mile pipeline is comprised of the following private and government entities: Government of Russian Federation, Republic of Kazakhstan, Sultanate of Oman and Chevron Caspian Pipeline Consortium Company (USA); Lukarco B.V., Rosneft-Shell Caspian Ventures Ltd., Mobil Caspian Pipeline Company (USA), Agip International, BG Overseas Holdings Ltd., Kazakhstan Pipeline Ventures L.L.C., and Oryx Caspian Pipeline L.L.C.

In addition to the new pipeline, the CPC currently has a 518-mile pipeline that originates in Tengiz, Kazakhstan, and is routed around the northern end of the Caspian Sea, terminating at Komsomolsk, Russia. The new 460-mile pipeline will extend from Komsomolsk to the new terminal shore facility being built northwest of the Port of Novorossiysk, on the Black Sea. Once completed, the pipeline will traverse approximately 981 miles of Kazakhstan and Russian terrain, and will be the primary export facility for Kazakhstan oil to the west.
SSP-Starstroi, a French-Russian consortium sponsored by Bouygues Offshore, Bouygues Group and Spie-Capag, was awarded a contract valued at $271 million to construct the 460-mile Caspian Pipeline and upgrade and refurbish 180-miles of CPC's existing 40-inch diameter pipeline between the Russian-Kazakhstan border and Komsomolskaya.
Russian pipeline contractors played a significant role in constructing the new pipeline. VolgogradNeftegazStroi (VNGS) performed rehabilitation works and constructed the eastern portion of the pipeline located in the Republic of Kalmykia; StavropolTruboProvodStroi (STPS) and SvarochnoMontajniTrust (SMT) shared responsibility for the work in the region of Stavropol; KubanNeftegazStroi (KNGS) constructed the pipeline in Kuban territory of Krasnodar Krai, while VostokNefteProvodStroi (VNPS) completed the section leading to the export facilities in Novorossiysk. Work on the project began in October 1999 and was on target for mechanical completion late last year.

Landscape
Over the course of the route, the pipeline crosses four regions of different landscapes, from East to West, i.e., Astrakhan Oblast, Republic of Kalmykia, Stavropol Krai and Krasnodar Krai. The two eastern regions are located in the Caspian Coastal Depression with flat plain, gently sloped undulating plain and Saiga antelope calving areas. Ground cover is described as sparse to denuded grass areas with few to no trees. The surface characteristics for Stavropol Upland are described as valley-ravine dissections and deep depressions with a ground cover of cultivated fields. Krasnodar Krai consists of irrigated land, rice fields and mountainous areas.

Contract Scheme
To meet a tight construction schedule and maximize local content, new construction was divided into four spreads and constructed simultaneously. On Spread No. 1, VNGS installed 150 miles of 40-inch Russian manufactured API 5L-X65 line pipe. On Spread No. 2, SNT was charged with constructing 152 miles of mainline construction. Spread No. 3, that involved the construction of 17 miles of 40-inch and 90 miles of 42-inch diameter pipe, was handled by KNGS, while VNPS completed work on Spread No. 4 that required 71.4 miles of 42-inch diameter mainline construction in both rice fields and in the mountains.
Each contractor handled all construction related activities on their respective spreads including ROW clearing and grading, trenching, double jointing, stringing, welding, coating, non-destructive examination, lowering in, ballasting, backfilling, road, railway and water crossings, hydrotesting, cathodic protection and mainline block valves and scraper/launcher installation.

ROW and Trenching
Initially, the client obtained Final Land Allocation of the ROW that ranged anywhere from 46 to 98.4 feet wide. Even though ROW acquisition was a vital component, emphasis was also placed on ensuring that topsoil could be returned to its original location. In total, more than 2,500,000 m3 (88,286,188 cubic yards) of topsoil was carefully and meticulously separated to preserve the quality of upper layers of fertile ground.

A trench 6.5 feet wide and 6.5 feet deep was excavated throughout the first three spreads using trenching machines for the linear part and backhoes at crossing locations. It seems worth noting that backhoe trenching was not possible on Spread No. 4, where crews encountered hard rock in the mountain area that forced the contractor to rely on drilling and blasting measures to excavate the rock and achieve the required trench size.
Trees were also plentiful over the course of the route. More than 22 miles of trees situated in the ROW were removed. Once felled, trunks and logs were given to farmers for domestic use while stubs were buried in designated quarries authorized by the regional Krai.

Pipe Transportation
The project has overcome many difficulties with regard to pipe transportation, including limited road networks, mobilization during inclement weather, and construction activities starting simultaneously on many fronts. On average, 55 miles of pipe per month was moved during 8,200 truck trips and 6,000 trips by rail.

Double Jointing
To keep field welding activities reduced as much as possible, a total of 12 pipe yards were installed and fully equipped by the contractor to make it possible to weld up pipe joints with an average length of 72 feet that could be transported distances of up to 37.2 miles from the ROW.

As to welding, two processes were used to perform the 30,200 welds; complete SAW (Submerged Automatic Welding) with two to three passes and a combination of SAW and SMAW (Submerged Manual Arc Welding) with back weld up to three passes.
Welding

Pipe wall thickness ranged from 10.6 to 15.3 for 40-inch API 5L - X65 and 10.7 to 14.7 for 42-inch API 5L - X70, with the heavier wall pipe used at special crossing locations. A great deal of flexibility was given by the various welding procedures developed and approved by the Russian control organizations (Gosgortechnadzor and VNIIST). Three major welding processes were used; SMAW, a combination of SMAW and FCAW (Flux Core Arc Welding) also called inner shield, and GMAW. With the latter being a particular source of pride, since three complete CRC-Evans automatic welding spreads were brought in from the U.S. for the purpose of training crews. Later, a high output was achieved, together with good standard of quality in a very short time. More than 65 percent of all girth welds were performed using GMAW. X-ray radiographic examination was used on all welds, and a repair rate approaching five percent was achieved and continuously improved.
Coating

Shrink sleeves of 430 mm wide and 4 mm thick were used to bond welds after being inspected. These were used on both FBE (Fusion Bonded Epoxy) and PE (Polyethylene) coated pipe. In addition, at intervals along the pipeline, sacrificial anodes were installed to protect the pipe against corrosion during the construction phase and anode beds installed to support the voltage in the cathodic protection system.
Crossings

Over the 460-mile route, the pipeline crosses rivers, canals, roads and railways. Twenty-three conventional open cut main river crossings and 11 horizontal directionally drilled (HDD) crossings were executed by contractors working directly for the client. In addition to the main river crossings, the route crossed 250 canals, the majority of which are located in the territory of Krasnodar. Set-on weights, concrete slabs and bolt-on weights were installed at waterway crossings as anti-buoyancy measures. Road crossings on the project were made through open cut or bored methods of construction. The bored crossings were installed inside corrosion-coated casing pipes. Similarly, all railway crossings on the project were accomplished through boring.
Construction Challenges

From a construction point of view, the main challenges for contractors occurred as crews moved west. In Kalmykia, where terrain is relatively flat, the main challenges were the extreme weather conditions. In addition, several major river crossings were required, and the introduction of microtunnelling was needed for the Chernozemelsky Canal crossing at KM 101, as conventional open cut and boring methods were not suitable. In the Stavropol region, the contractor relied on microtunnelling for the Pravo-Egorlyksky Canal crossing at KM 339. Also, two commercial fish farms in Stavropol Krai had to be drained. The challenges on Spreads 2 and 3 proved similar and primarily involved elevation changes. One of the more significant construction challenges came on Spread 4, which although only 71.4 miles in length, required the crossing of rice paddies, mountainous terrain and approximately 170 crossings of various types. The construction techniques used on Spread 4 differed considerably from the other spreads, due to the nature of the obstacles and difficulty of the terrain.
Environmental and Safety

An environmental management program has been developed with the client to prevent, mitigate, respond to and remedy the impact of construction operations on key environmental components (air, water, soil, vegetation, wildlife) as well as health and livelihood of all the people involved on the project.
Social Economics

The execution of this project has been welcomed in the various regions and has provided hundreds of jobs for locals. The project has also provided work to many local suppliers and will obviously benefit the economies of the regions in which the pipeline was constructed.

Khurais Wips

Khurais: a massive undertaking

In response to constantly increasing demand, world leader Saudi Aramco has decided to reactivate several of its fields to increase the company’s production capacity to 12 million barrels per day (MMbpd) by 2009.
The Khurais field, currently dormant, is by far the largest of the fields under development. Reactivating this field to produce 1.2 MMbpd of Arabian light crude will involve injecting a significant volume (2.1 MMbpd) of seawater drawn from the Arabian Gulf.
Saipem has taken on the lion's share in developing the Khurais project. In total, Saudi Aramco has entrusted five infrastructure projects to Snamprogetti, Saudi Arabian Saipem and Saipem:

1. A seawater intake plant (QSTP)
2. Two Pipelines Packages
3. Seawater Pumping stations (WIPS) in JV with SNC-Lavalin (Canada)
4. Khurais WIPS and Utilities (KUC)
5. Khurais Crude Oil Facilities (KCC)

O.B.E.: an ingenious concept


The Khurais Water Injection Pumping Stations (WIPS) project involves revamping, modernizing and increasing the capacity of four existing pumping stations on another major oil field, Ghawar. The Khurais project alone will increase Saudi Arabia's production capacity by 1.6 MMbpd. To understand the scale of the project, compare this effort with Libya's production of 1.77 MMbpd or Nigeria's production of 2 MMbpd (January 2008).
The contract signed in April 2006 with the SNC Lavalin/Saipem consortium involved starting the project on a cost-plus basis and converting this to a turnkey fixed-price contract, when the level of risk is deemed acceptable to the client and the consortium. This conversion took place to the satisfaction of all one year later. Engineering had achieved progress of 65%, 95% of purchases had been committed to and all the main subcontracting agreements had been assigned.
The conversion was carried out according to clearly defined criteria and procedures agreed upon at contact signing, and with complete transparency based on open-book estimates. This enabled the teams to work together very cohesively in managing risks and opportunities. Customer representatives brought their in-depth knowledge of Aramco's rules and standards, while consortium teams designed and specified the project’s outlines, separately from the economical and contractual aspects that usually hamper the progress of such projects.
This is one of the main benefits of the conversion: adherence to the overall project schedule.

Bitterly cold winter and blisteringly hot summer

A key feature of the WIPS project is that it has been conducted under the most extreme environments on the planet, with polar conditions during the Canadian winter and scorching temperatures during the Saudi summer. The engineering studies were carried out in Calgary, Alberta at the premises of partner company SNC Lavalin. Personnel were mobilized before the contract was signed in view of the fact that the feasibility studies (FEED) had been entrusted to SNC Lavalin.
Immediately after the conversion, the project's centre of gravity switched continents: to Ain Dar, Saudi Arabia, some 120 km south of Saipem's historic base in Dammam.

A wealth of challenges

Another key challenge for the project involves its geographic disparity. This undertaking actually comprises four mini-projects, each 150 km apart from the others: Ain Dar in the north, ‘Uthmaniyah and Hawiyah in the middle and Haradh in the south. Effective management is necessary to handle such decentralization and the ensuing logistics issues.
The 10 gas turbines (frame V) installed by the customer were given a facelift. Their control systems were replaced with high-tech components in a "surgical" operation that involved shutting down each turbine in turn and then replacing all instrumentation, cables and control cabinets. Work was carried out with no loss of production time whatsoever for the customer, which earned us the operators’ respect.
The life of the project is punctuated with production shutdowns: the internal components of three mega pumps were replaced in Hawiyah; three mega pumps and their support systems will be completely replaced in Ain Dar; and the compressed-air production unit at Hawiyah has been moved to free up space for a new turbine – a very delicate operation, since it involves the very heart of the plant. A few kilometres of corroded carbon-steel pipes will be replaced. All the functions carried out via the control buildings and energy-production substations at Ain Dar and ‘Uthmaniyah will be transferred to newly constructed buildings. All this makes the Khurais WIPS project riskier and more complicated than implementing a completely grass root project.

In addition to modernizing and rebuilding Saudi Aramco's working tools, the project is also helping to substantially increase production thanks to the installation of 10 new mega pumps powered by gas turbines (frame V).

Three thousand people, of 35 different nationalities, are currently working non-stop on the various sites to deliver the installations to Saudi Aramco within the contractually agreed times. For construction and pre-commissioning requirements, the consortium is working in partnership with various Saudi entrepreneurs, including the Mohamed Al-Moujil Group for Mechanics, Piping and E&I, and Eastern Trading Enterprise and the International Centre of Commerce for Civil Construction.

The home stretch

The project is reaching its final phase: at the end of April 2008, progress stood at 90%, engineering work was complete, most equipment and materials had been received at the sites and construction progress had reached 75%. Mechanical completion will take place between June and August 2008. Vigilance is essential over the coming period to meet the challenge of a tight schedule, with assembly of some 5,500 tons of piping at four sites and completion of the installation of the gas turbines and associated pumps. Switchovers of the electrical substations on two of the four sites, will involve all personnel at both Aindar and ‘Uthmaniyah. The transfer of the electrical substations is planned to take place without any production shutdowns, making detailed hourly monitoring of the schedule imperative.

Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia occupies more than three-quarters of the Arabian Peninsula, i.e., 2,253,000 sq.km. It has 23 million inhabitants, 35% of them of foreign origin, with a density of 11 inhabitants per sq.km.

Borders
North: Kuwait, Iraq and Jordan
South: Yemen and Oman
East: United Arab Emirates, Qatar and the Arabian Gulf
West: The Red Sea

Geographic regions
The kingdom is divided into five geographic regions:
o Najd (central region).
o Hedjaz (western region).
o Northern region.
o Eastern region.
o Asir and the southern region.

Saudi Arabian desert
Eastern region: the world's richest source of oil, this area stretches between the Ad-Dahna Desert and Arabian Gulf to the south of the Emirate of Kuwait. This province occupies the majority of the western coast of the Arabian Gulf. There are three large oases, and certain significant agricultural projects have been carried out there.
Ancient cities in the region include Hafuf, Qatif and Jubail. The towns of Dammam, Dhahran, Al Khobar and Ras Tanura are newer cities that have risen since the discovery of oil.

Climate
The climate is distinguished by drought and cold in winter, with temperatures falling as low as 0° C, and blistering heat in summer, with temperatures of up to 50° C in some inland areas.
The coastal regions are not as hot but are very humid. While humidity is close to 100% on the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf coasts, the desert dominates inland areas.
The average rainfall level is about 5.9 mm, but this rises to 91 mm in the Asir region to the south.

Nirvana, Fadel Chaker, Sindibad.

Fadel Chaker, une grande voix de velours, un poete hors paire, une etoile scintillante d'amour et de bonheur dans le ciel de la musique arabe assez terne depuis la disparition de monstres comme Oum kaltoum et Abdel halim Hafed.

Bahrain, ou la ou les mers rencontrent le ciel

Bahrain,

Le plus petit etat arabe commence a devenir grand , a chaque fois que je me trouve a Manama, un air de liberte et d'ouverture caresse mon visage et me donne ce sentiment de ' il fait bon vivre ici'.
Bahrain est petit par sa superficie et sa population; 665 km2 pour a peine 1 million d'habitant, mais des pretentions enormes sur le plan economique et notamment financier, il faut dire que Bahrain a su developper un secteur bancaire bien structure et assez moderne depuis que Beirut a periclite en tant que grande place financier du moyen-orient durant les trois dernieres decennies du siecle dernier.
Les signes exterieurs de richesse ne se cachent pas ici et la plupart des bahrainis fortunes se la jouent bien ( Rolex, Vertu, Lamborghini, Ferrarri sont des banalites affligeantes pour certains ).
Par une volante royale, l'education a ete depuis l'independance en 1971 une priorite nationale, les bahrainis en grande majorite sont instruits et bien eduques, ce qui les rend d'un abord tres sociable et force le respect parmis les peuples de la region.

Les femmes, quand bien meme sont encore assez conservatrices et gardiennes des traditions ancestrales; elles travaillent, sortent seules ou entre elles dans les hotels, restaurants et cinemas, conduisent, ..., bref elles existent, j'en ai vu.
L'insularite de cette ile ( perdue en 1986 avec le king fahad causeway qui la relie a l'arabie saudite en 30 mn ) a fait que Bahrain a su rester une terre d'ouverture et de liberte.
Manama est une belle ville ou beaucoup de nationalites cohabitent; la finance ( libanais, anglais et saoudiens ), le tertiaire est tres asiatique ( Philippines, inde,

bangladesh...), une base americaine a draine beaucoup de GIs amercains. Beaucoup de chantiers de tres grande envergure champignonent ici et la dont le plus fou est de loin ' Durrat Al Bahrain ', une ile artificielle de 1,2 milliards de USD premiere d'une serie de 13.
Pour les restaurants, j'ai beaucoup aime Plums et trader vicks qui se trouvent dans le Ritz Carlton Hotel, Lilo; Upstairs-Downstairs; Cafe Italia; Coral beach, Yakout, un super restaurant marocain dans le Novotel.

Gulf Air, la compagnie aerienne de Bahrain est excellente, une flotte sans cesse renouvellee et bien maintenue, un service cosmopolite de qualite, des hotesses marocaines agrementent certaines destinations par leur joie de vivre et leur sens inne du service.

La seule inquietude qui me taraude l'esprit c'est comment la famille royale fera t-elle pour vivre avec une contestation chiitte assez ecoutee et assez dynamique. Une grande intelligence s'impose pour continuer a faire de Bahrain cette exception ou on aime retourner a defaut de s'y installer.