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Saipem wins Sustainability Award

Published by , Senior Editor
LNG Industry,


Saipem has won the 2014 Premier’s Sustainability Award in Australia under the category ‘Innovation in Sustainable Technologies’.

Saipem received the award for the construction of the Narrows Marine Crossing - one of the world’s longest trenchless marine pipelines (4.3 km long x 42 in. wide)

Saipem was awarded the detailed design, procurement and construction for the Narrows Marine Crossing project by Santos GLNG in 2011. The pipeline will transport the extracted and compressed coal bed methane (CBM) from gas fields between the town of Roma, in Queensland, and the Arcadia Valley to the Curtis Island LNG processing facility, off Gladstone. The last section of the GLNG pipeline runs The Narrows tidal plain.

In order to minimise the environmental impact of pipeline construction activities, Saipem built a 4 m wide undersea tunnel enabling the pipeline to cross The Narrows without disturbance to the local marine habitat, wildlife and surrounding coastal environment.

The most innovative aspect of this project, never performed before in the oil and gas industry, is the utilisation of a pipe thruster machine to launch a pipeline in a tunnel.

The excavation of the tunnel was performed using a tunnel boring machine with an internal diameter of 3.4 m, which lines the tunnel with precast concrete segments. The 42 in. pipeline was installed inside the tunnel, subsequently completely sealed and backfilled with seawater. The flooded tunnel facilitates the pipeline pushing action by reducing the pipe’s vertical load and consequently the friction on the tunnel floor.

Saipem received the award along with Santos GLNG and Thiess.


Adapted from press release by

Read the article online at: https://www.lngindustry.com/liquefaction/23062014/saipem_wins_sustainability_award_824/

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