Gas pipeline reaches Vietnam's Long Hai beach
HANOI - Preparations to pull the Nam Con Son gas pipeline onto Long Hai Beach in Ba
Ria-Vung Tau Province have been completed and the pipelay vessel Semac 1 has been on site, 1.2km off the
coast at Long Hai.
Upon arrival on Tuesday, the Semac, accompanied by a flotilla of support vessels, deployed its twelve anchors
to hold it in position while the pipeline was pulled ashore by a 350-tonne linear winch situated on the beach.
The complete pull of the 26-inch diametre pipeline will take about two days. For the last section of the pull, the
pipeline will emerge from the water through a 200m long cofferdam (a sheet piled excavation) onto the beach.
Over the last three months, construction activities on Long
Hai Beach have been aimed at bringing the pipeline ashore so
it can be connected to the onshore section of pipeline that
leads to BP's new gas terminal at Dinh Co in Ba Ria-Vung
Tau.
Before its arrival at Long Hai, the Semac had completed
283km of pipelay in 80 days, consisting of 23,708 pipe joins,
each 12m long, commencing at the Lan Tay Field in March
of this year.
"Pipelay will be completed in mid-July and the first gas will be
delivered to Dinh Co Terminal in November," Will Banks,
project engineer pipeline of Nam Con Son Gas Project told
Vietnam News Agency during an interview at the site on
Long Hai Beach last Thursday.
When commissioned, the pipeline will deliver gas from BP's Lan Tay Field in the Nam Con Son Basin,
approximately 361km from Long Hai. Vietnam Oil and Gas Corp. (PetroVietnam) and BP turned ground for the
Nam Con Son Pipeline Project at Dinh Co Terminal on May 31 of last year after a prolonged period of
discussions and negotiations.
The US$565 million Nam Con Son Pipeline Project will create a pipeline for transporting gas from fields in Nam
Con Son Basin, on the continental shelf off southeastern Vietnam, to Phu My power complex in Ba Ria-Vung
Tau Province's Tan Thanh District.
The 399km pipeline will have a capacity of 2.7 billion cu.m per year in the first stage of the project. This is a joint
venture between PetroVietnam (51 per cent stake), the UK's BP (32.67 per cent), and Norwegian Statoil
(16.33 per cent).
BP is now operating the entire Nam Con Son Pipeline Project. The pipeline is part of the larger Nam Con Son
Gas Project, which encompasses gas production, transportation and power generation. The US$1.3 billion gas
project's upstream section will produce 3 billion cu.m of gas per year from the reserves of 58 billion cubic
metres.
The midstream section will produce 11.3 million cu.m of gas per day through the terminal. BP will invest in the
715MW Phu My Combined Cycle Plant No. 3, known as Nam Con Son's Power Project.
The thermal power plant will be a BOT (build-operate-transfer) project wholly owned by BP. A fertilizer plant
will also be located near the Phu My Industrial Complex.
The gas project will enable the generation of some 12 billion kWh of electricity per year, equivalent to 40 per
cent of the current national demand, thus reducing power shortages.
"Forecasted gas prices and the economics of the plan seem agreeable to Vietnamese authorities, and will offer
BP a fair rate of return on its investment," said President and Director General of BP Vietnam Steve Walker.
"It will be several years before BP sees a return on its investment, but we plan to provide offshore gas to Vietnam
for 30 or 40 years," Walker told Vietnam News Agency during the ground breaking ceremony at Dinh Co.
Vietnam News Agency - June 19, 2002.
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