The Greenstream pipeline, part of the
Western Libyan Gas Project The Western Libyan Gas Project (WLGP) is a 50–50 joint venture between the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) and the Italian company Eni which came online in October 2004. By July 2007, per year of natural gas was being exported from a proc ...
, is a
natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...
submarine
pipeline
Pipeline may refer to:
Electronics, computers and computing
* Pipeline (computing), a chain of data-processing stages or a CPU optimization found on
** Instruction pipelining, a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a s ...
running from western
Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...
to the island of
Sicily
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
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in
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
.
History
The idea of natural gas from Libya to Italy originating from the 1970s. Feasibility studies were carried out in the 1980s and 1990s. Construction of the pipeline started in 2003.
[ The pipeline's main contractor was ]Saipem
Saipem S.p.A. (Società Anonima Italiana Perforazioni E Montaggi lit. ''Drilling and Assembly Italian Public Limited Company'') is an Italian multinational oilfield services company and one of the largest in the world. Until 2016 it was a subsid ...
, that used for pipeline laying the Castoro Sei
The ''Castoro Sei'' (Italian for ''Beaver Six'') is a column stabilized semi-submersible pipelay vessel. She has an overall length of , a width of and an operating draught of .
The ''Castoro Sei'' is equipped with 2 rotating gantry cranes ...
and Crawler vessels. The shore approach and landfall works were done by Boskalis Offshore.
The supplies started on 1 October 2004 and the pipeline was inaugurated on 7 October 2004 by Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi ( ; ; born 29 September 1936) is an Italian media tycoon and politician who served as Prime Minister of Italy in four governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies ...
and Muammar Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, . Due to the lack of standardization of transcribing written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been romanized in various ways. A 1986 column by ''The Straight Dope'' lists 32 spellin ...
.[
]
Technical features
The Greenstream pipeline is long and it runs from Mellitah in Libya to Gela, in Sicily
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, Italy.[ It is located in water depths exceeding .] It includes also the Mellitah compressor station and the Gela reception terminal. The pipeline is supplied from the Bahr Essalam
Bahr may refer to:
*Bahr, Iran, village in Bushehr Province, Iran
* Bahr, village near Straßburg, now: Barr, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France
*Bahr, Netherlands, hamlet in Gelderland, Netherlands
*Bahr (surname)
*Bahr (toponymy), a component of Arabic pla ...
offshore field, Bouri Field
The Bouri Offshore Field is part of Block NC-41, which is located north of the Libyan coast in the Mediterranean Sea. It was first discovered in 1976 at a depth of and is estimated to contain in proven recoverable crude oil reserves and of ass ...
and Wafa field near Algeria
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n border, from Mellitah. The construction cost US$6.6 billion.[ The pipeline has a diameter of and an initial capacity of 8 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas per year.][ Later the capacity was increased to 11 bcm.][
]
Ownership
The pipeline is constructed and owned by Agip Gas BV, a joint venture of the Italian energy company Eni
Eni S.p.A. () is an Italian multinational energy company headquartered in Rome. Considered one of the seven "supermajor" oil companies in the world, it has operations in 69 countries with a market capitalization of US$54.08 billion, as of 11 Ap ...
and the National Oil Corporation (NOC) of Libya.[
]
See also
*Trans-Mediterranean Pipeline
The Trans-Mediterranean Pipeline (''TransMed''; also ''Enrico Mattei gas pipeline'') is a natural gas pipeline from Algeria via Tunisia to Sicily and thence to mainland Italy. An extension of the TransMed pipeline delivers Algerian gas to Sloveni ...
*GALSI
GALSI ( it, Gasdotto Algeria Sardegna Italia) was a planned natural gas pipeline from Algeria to Sardinia and further northern Italy, as an extension to the TransMed Pipeline.
History
The feasibility study was completed in 2005. The intergover ...
*Medgaz
Medgaz is a submarine natural gas pipeline transport, pipeline between Algeria and Spain.
History
The idea of building a direct gas pipeline between Algeria and Europe arose in the 1970s. However, the technical limitations at that time prevente ...
*Maghreb–Europe Gas Pipeline
The Maghreb–Europe Gas Pipeline (MEG; also known as the Pere Duran Farell pipeline or Gazoduc Maghreb Europe GME) is a natural gas pipeline, which links the Hassi R'Mel gas field in Algeria through Morocco with Cordoba in Andalusia, Spain, wh ...
*Trans-Saharan gas pipeline
The Trans-Saharan gas pipeline (TSGP; also known as NIGAL pipeline and Trans-African gas pipeline) is a planned natural gas Pipeline transport, pipeline from Nigeria to Algeria. It is seen as an opportunity to diversify the European Union's gas s ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Greenstream pipeline
Energy infrastructure completed in 2004
Natural gas pipelines in Libya
Natural gas pipelines in Italy
Tripolitania
Italy–Libya relations
Pipelines under the Mediterranean Sea
2004 establishments in Italy
2004 establishments in Libya