Company briefs - 2011-06-30

Nord Stream reports that all three sections of the first of the twin 1,224 kilometer natural gas pipelines have now been joined together underwater by hyperbaric tie-ins. The completed pipeline through the Baltic Sea will now be prepared for connection to landfalls in Russia and Germany. Nord Stream’s twin pipelines each consist of 101,000 12-meter long 48-inch diameter concrete-weight coated steel pipes each weighing about 23 tons. The pipes were first welded together on board special pipelay vessels and laid on the seabed along a precisely defined route agreed with the five countries through whose waters the pipeline passes: Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany. When both lines are fully operational by the end of 2012, the project will be capable of transporting 55 billion cubic meters of gas a year to Europe.

On June 20, Eesti Energia and GE Energy concluded a contract to establish a wind energy park on the Pakri peninsula for nearly 33 million euros, reports Aripaev Online. The wind energy park, with nine wind generators, will be completed in 2012 and will in the future cover the electricity consumption of nearly 20,000 households with average consumption. The total capacity of the wind park will be 22.5 MW and the annual energy production will total around 67 GWh. “With the completion of the Paldiski wind park we will take yet another step in improving the environmental sustainability of production of electricity in Estonia,” said the CEO of Eesti Energia Sandor Liive. “Clean and nature-friendly wind energy will help us avoid emitting nearly 70,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the ambient air each year,” he added.