Gottwald to fuel Europe’s gas demands

The Nord Stream gas pipeline will run from Vyborg, Russia to Lubmin, Germany, and will transport 55 billion cu m of Russian natural gas to Europe a year.

It will consist of 200,000 pipe sections in two pipeline strings extending for around 1,220km. The first sections will be laid in spring 2010.

Some of the pipe sections for the first string of the pipeline are being manufactured in Russia and then transported to the Finish maritime port of Kotka. There, each of the sections, weighing around 11t, will be given a concrete weight coating to make them weigh twice as much, around 23t, to ensure they lie firmly on the seabed. The concrete coated pipe sections are then shipped from Kotka to Hanko, where the Finnish marshalling yard is located.

Norway’s NorSea Group has ordered the diesel-electric Gottwald G HMK 4406 mobile harbour crane to handle 40,000 pipe sections at the Port of Hanko, between the quay and the laying barge supply vessels. The 100t capacity crane can lift 57t loads, including two pipe sections and a special purpose pipe spreader, across a wide radius.

Asgeir Klingsheim, technical director of NorSea Group, said: ”The crane is compact and very functional and, thanks to its characteristics and capabilities, will make a valuable contribution to the construction of the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic.”