"The pipeline was pulled from the Castoro Sei vessel using a steel cable, which was pulled from the land side with a winch," Poland's natural gas network operator Gaz-System said late on Monday.
“By using microtunneling technology, the gas pipeline was laid under the beach and cliff, thus ensuring no visual interference with the shoreline and onshore investment environment,” it added in a statement.
The pipeline, which is part of Warsaw’s efforts to diversify gas supplies and reduce the country’s energy dependence on Russia, is due to be launched in October next year to operate at an initial capacity of 2 to 3 billion cubic meters per year, and at full capacity from the end of 2022.
The Baltic Pipe is ultimately expected to have the capacity to carry 10 billion cubic metres of natural gas from Norway to Poland via Denmark annually.
Poland’s annual gas usage is estimated at around 17 billion cubic metres, of which half is imported from Russia’s gas giant Gazprom under a contract expiring in December 2022.
Piotr Naimski, the Polish government's pointman on strategic energy infrastructure, reaffirmed on Monday that his country would stop buying Russian gas after its long-term supply deal with Gazprom expires at the end of 2022.
The Polish president in 2019 described the Baltic Pipe as “a strategic project for Poland’s energy transformation, as well as for the energy security of the entire Central and Eastern Europe region.”
(jh/gs)
Source: biznesalert.pl