JSC Stroytransgaz has overcome the last obstacle beneath a waterway at the construction of the Russia-Turkey main gas pipeline (“Blue Stream”) having installed a crossing under the river of Ubin not far from the settlement of Severskaya in Krasnodar area.
Wednesday, July 31, 2002
JSC Stroytransgaz has overcome the last obstacle beneath a waterway at the construction of the Russia-Turkey main gas pipeline (“Blue Stream”) having installed a crossing under the river of Ubin not far from the settlement of Severskaya in Krasnodar area.
The gas pipeline 1420 mm in dia. was laid at the depth of 18 meters under the river bed by boring a hole 720 meters long. This crossing was installed by the horizontal directional drilling method by the specialists of the joint venture “VIS & MOS, Ltd”, a subsidiary of JSC Stroytransgaz. The area is characterized by complicated soil made up of the mixture of rock debris and gravel. Such soil does not allow one to use standard barrel reamers for reaming the hole. To avoid a risky situation of borehole wall collapse and loss of boring tools the engineers of JV “VIS & MOS, Ltd” composed a special formula of the drill mud and modernized boring tools by adding to them rolling blades. The trenchless method of laying of the pipeline under the last waterway obstacle was a success. Thus JSC Stroytransgaz during construction of the Russian section of the Russia-Turkey main gas pipeline has installed 8 river crossings in Krasnodar and Stavropol areas with the total length of 6.5 kilometers. Furthermore during this period of construction the company passed 2 km of swamps and 13.5 km of watered ground. Before completing construction of the Russia-Turkey main gas pipeline at the plain section of the Russian territory 307 km long 2.3 km of the pipeline is still to be laid and 304.1 km of the pipeline to be tested.
