Wasco Coatings has awarded Blue Water Shipping of Esbjerg, Denmark, a €40-million contract for the transport, handling and storage of 113,000 Nord Stream 2 project pipes.
Wasco was earlier awarded the contract for concrete weight coating, storage and logistics of the 200,000 pipes required for the project.
The remaining 87,000 pipes are shipped directly from the coating facilities to the pipelay vessels.
Blue Water Shipping’s contract covers sea transport of pipes from Wasco’s coating facilities in Mukran, Germany, and Kotka, Finland, to storage yards in Karlshamn, Sweden, and Hanko, Finland. This part of the project will cover about 475 shipments by coaster vessels. Blue Water’s contract covers loading the pipes, transport to storage yards, operation of the storage yards – and finally loading of the feeder vessels transferring the pipes to the pipelay vessels from AllSeas.
Blue Water will also involve the company’s local offices in Sweden, Finland and Germany, as well as local subcontractors in Sweden and Finland.
Nord Stream 2’s logistics concept is based on the use of logistics hubs located in ports around the Baltic Sea. The project-related operations should provide a positive economic impact on the ports and subcontractors and contribute to long-term development.
“With Blue Water another first-class company from the Baltic Sea region has joined our international infrastructure project,” says Henning Kothe , Nord Stream 2 AG’s project director. “This latest contract brings the total contractual commitments on the Nord Stream 2 project to over 4 billion EUR, involving more than 200 companies from 17 countries, most of them coming from Europe. The project is progressing according to schedule.”