Saipem is progressing its pipelay activities on state-owned Turkish Petroleum’s huge $3.6 billion Sakarya gas project in the Black Sea. - UpstreamOnline

Due on stream in 2023, the 15 trillion cubic foot development will be tapped by subsea wells and a 170-kilometre subsea tie-back to a coastal processing plant at Filyos.

Saipem is installing the export pipeline, while the Subsea Integration Alliance between Subsea 7 and Schlumberger's OneSubsea has responsibility for the subsea production system in 2200 metres of water.

Saipem’s Castorone and Castoro 10 lay barges have been contracted for the pipelay work, which began in June.

Castoro 10 arrived offshore Filyos on 31 May, since when it has been wrapped up in a tricky exercise calling for five kilometres of pipeline to be installed in shallow water.

Castorone — which arrived at Filyos on 1 July, according to data from maritime and aviation intelligence provider VesselsValue —is now installing the 165-kilometre deep-water section of the pipeline.

Subsea 7’s Seven Pegasus dive support vessel is also supporting pipelay operations.

Turkish Petroleum currently has no fewer than three drillships — Fatih, Yavuz and Kanuni — carrying out development drilling operations at Sakarya, signalling how much of a priority this project is for the government.

Due on stream in the first quarter of 2023 — ahead of Turkey’s presidential election next June — this initial Sakarya project is expected to produce from up to 10 subsea wells.

Upstream understands that a second, potentially larger development phase is also being worked on.

The Filyos gas processing facility will handle an initial 350 million cubic feet per day of gas before this volume is boosted to 1.4 billion cubic feet per day.