Mediterranean And Black Sea Pipelines: A New Approach To The Repair System

In the last few years the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea regions have seen a growing activity to lay gas transportation pipelines across long distances and very deep waters. These pipelines have considerable sizes and in some cases they consist of single lines. As a consequence greater interest has been focused recently on the availability of effective methodologies and equipment to ensure pipeline repair in any contingency. The ARCoS pipeline repair system, developed on behalf of SNAM and currently being maintained by Sonsub in a stand by condition ready for mobilisation, is an established technology to face deep water pipeline repair, though not sufficient to solve all conditions to be envisaged for the new ultra deep pipelines. Sonsub has launched the SiRCoS project to develop the repair system best suited in the worst damage scenarios. This will be a result of ARCoS upgrade and will benefit from the latest technology developments. An important new feature of the system currently being developed in this project will be its capability of being made available to different pipelines by sharing common installation and operation equipment. On this ground it will be possible to ensure effective methods for repair by attaining a significant saving in the investment costs.