JSC Stroytransgaz has completed installation of a crossing under the river of Sukhoy Log near the settlement of Tbilisskaya in Krasnodar area on the main gas pipeline route Russia-Turkey (“Blue Stream”).
Monday, July 15, 2002
JSC Stroytransgaz has completed installation of a crossing under the river of Sukhoy Log near the settlement of Tbilisskaya in Krasnodar area on the main gas pipeline route Russia-Turkey (“Blue Stream”).
The crossing has been installed at a depth of 14 meters beneath the river bed. The borehole is 780 meters long and the diameter of the pipe pulled through is 1420 mm. For installation of the crossing a horizontal directional drilling method was used. It was executed by the specialists of the joint venture “VIS & MOS, Ltd”, a subsidiary of JSC Stroytransgaz. As it was informed earlier the company’s specialists have successfully completed already six crossings beneath the waterways in the territory of Russia. The first crossing under the Ponura river was installed in May last year. Because of viscous soil of the area it was not possible to use traditional barrel reamers and the engineers of Stroytransgaz unified a drill rig by adding to it cutting blades. The use of this design made it possible to prepare ideally a hole 800 meters long at a depth of 17 meters beneath the river bed for pulling a pipe. Improvement of drilling tools was also used by the specialists of the company during installation of a crossing under the Kuban river being the main water artery of the Southern region. Thanks to the inventions made by the drilling crew of “VIS & MOS, Ltd” execution period of the work was substantially reduced: the hole was drilled during 20 days instead of two months according to the schedule. Two crossings under the Vtoraya Kochety river and crossings under the rivers of Rasshevatovka and Chelbas also required a search for better methods during installation. In particular, for preparation of the drilling mud of the required viscosity special polymers were used. At present JSC Stroytransgaz started overcoming the last water obstacle of the “Blue Stream” under the Ubin river.
