Saipem, through its subsidiary ERSAI Caspian Contractor LLC, has awarded GAS KCO (Kazakh subsidiary of GAS Italy) a contract for the survey and positioning services.

GAS was recruited to provide these services during the construction of two pipelines of 95 km each which will connect D Island in the Caspian Sea to the Karabatan onshore plant in Kazakhstan.

Scope of work includes the provision of personnel and equipment on board the survey vessel to carry out pre-lay, as laid and as built survey. Moreover, it includes the provision of precise positioning on board 4 construction and post trenching vessels and 14 TUGs.

For this project, 20 tracking points have been installed by GAS technicians on the buoyancy tanks aligned over 10 km of pipes. Each control point is capable to transmit the pipe position and heading to the laying barge located at 10 km of distance.

According to the company, the string push/pulling operation is expected to take approximately to 60 days. The differential signal is broadcasted by means of TDMA techniques; the pipe movements are collected from the C12 pipe lay barge during push/pulling operations.