09-01-01 Officials in Ankara announced that work on the Turkish section of the Goluboi Potok (Blue Stream) gas pipeline was nearly complete. All 501 km of pipe along the route from Samsun to Ankara have been welded together, they said. Construction work has not yet been finished along the 201 km section of pipe between Samsun and Corum, they noted, but hydrostatic testing of the 300 km Corum-Ankara section is due to be completed on January 15.
The pipeline will be finished in April of this year, the officials said. Work on the new pumping station that is to be built in the Samsun province will probably be wrapped up in August, they added. Meanwhile, they noted, Italy's Saipem is preparing to start work on the 376 km underwater section of the pipeline that will run from Dzhugba, on the Russian Black Sea coast, to Samsun.
The Italian company has already secured 30 % of the pipes needed to complete this part of the pipeline, the officials stated. Saipem plans to lay about 7 km of pipe beneath the bed of the Black Sea each day and will finish its work by the end of September, they said. Russia's Gazprom has already completed work on the section of pipe connecting its pumping station in Izobilnoye with Dzhugba.
When finished, the Blue Stream pipeline will be 1,200 km long. It is expected to begin carrying Russian gas to Turkey on September 20, 2001. Initially, it will only carry 500 mm cm of natural gas per year, with throughput rising to peak capacity of 16 bn cmpy by 2007.