Baltic Pipe nears start-up

Once complete, the pipeline will boost gas supplies from the Norwegian North Sea. (Photo: Saipem.)

The Baltic Pipe project, which will supply gas from the Norwegian North Sea to Denmark and Poland, is nearing its planned in-service date of October 1. In July, the project partners, Denmark’s Energinet and Poland’s Gaz-System, completed the final welds on the pipeline, connecting it to both countries’ transmission networks.

Gaz-System’s president, Tomasz Stępień, said in a July 21 update that while some start-up and gasification work still needed to be carried out, a new natural gas supply corridor to the Central and Eastern European region had now been established.

On August 5, Gaz-System issued a further update, saying it had performed acceptance testing on all three of the compressor stations it had built or expanded as part of the Baltic Pipe project. The expanded Odolanów compressor station was the first of the three facilities to report operational readiness, followed by the expanded Goleniów station. Finally, the newly built Gustorzyn station was also reported to be operationally ready. All three stations were now in the process of being filled with gas and undergoing finishing works, Gaz-System said.

The construction and expansion of the stations has increased the total gas compression capacity of Poland’s transmission system by more than 50%, which Gaz-System said improves the flexibility and operational security of the network.

The capacity of the Odolanów compressor station was increased by 30 MW, raising its gas throughput from 280,000 m3/h to 1,380,000 m3/h. The capacity of the Goleniów station was expanded by 25 MW. The Gustorzyn station was built with three compressor units and a total capacity of 20 MW.