Wintershall has informed that one of the biggest pipe-laying vessels in the world Allseas’ ‘Solitaire’ started its journey to build the Polarled pipeline.

The pipeline will transport the gas from Aasta Hansen and the neighboring discoveries to the Norwegian west coast starting in 2017. Since September 2014, Wintershall has been a shareholder in the Aasta Hansteen development project, neighboring licenses and Polarled.

The 480-kilometer-long Polarled will be the deepest pipeline in its order of magnitude. With a diameter of 90 centimeters (36 inches), Polarled will be laid on a maximum water depth of 1,265 meters. The pipeline is designed to transport up to 70 million cubic meters of gas per day. Until August of this year the pipeline will be laid, then the first gas is set to flow to Nyhamna facility in 2017.

Aasta Hansteen is one of the largest and most complex industrial projects in the whole of Europe. However, there is virtually no infrastructure available in this part of the Norwegian Sea in order to transport the gas to the mainland. The construction of the infrastructure is of major strategic importance for the future development of the region.