Baltic Pipe – Ramboll will design offshore gas pipeline from Denmark to Poland

Photo of the article On 3 August 2017, GAZ-SYSTEM concluded a contract with Ramboll Danmark A/S for execution of the analytical, survey and design work necessary for securing the requisite building permits for construction of the Baltic Pipe offshore gas pipeline.
The scope of work covers geophysical, geotechnical and environmental surveys with the securing of requisite building permits for construction of the offshore pipeline. Ramboll Danmark A/S will also be responsible for developing legally required procedures, approvals and consultations. Furthermore, it will prepare detailed design and procurement documentation enabling commencement and pursuit of construction work.
“Our priority is timely and efficient construction of the offshore pipeline. We hope that our collaboration to date and the contractor’s know-how will contribute to successful completion of the entire undertaking. The initial geophysical and environmental surveys in the Baltic Sea are scheduled to commence already in August. They will allow us to determine the exact route of the gas pipeline,”  says Tomasz Stępień, President of the Management Board of GAZ-SYSTEM.
The pipeline running from Denmark to Poland on the bottom of the Baltic Sea is one of the five elements enabling connection of the Polish transmission system to the deposits on the Norwegian shelf in the North Sea. The remaining elements of the project include the complex pipeline from the Norwegian system in the North Sea to the Danish tie-in, expansion of the existing transmission capacity in the Danish onshore system, construction of the Zealand compressor station in Denmark and expansion of the Polish transmission system.
The first phase of the 2017 Open Season Procedure, completed on 25 July 2017, confirmed sufficient market interest for gas transmission from the North Sea via Denmark and the Baltic Sea to Poland. On that basis, natural gas operators of the Danish and Polish transmission systems, Energinet and GAZ-SYSTEM, decided to continue their efforts to bring the Baltic Pipe project to a successful conclusion. At the start of September, the second phase of the 2017 Open Season Procedure will commence enabling the submission of binding bids for new transmission capacity within the framework of the planned project.
The Baltic Pipe project was included in the first list of Projects of Common Interest (PCI), drawn up by the European Commission in 2013, and in the subsequent list adopted by the European Commission on 18 November 2015.
In 2015, the Baltic Pipe project received a subsidy from the European Union under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) of EUR 0.4 million for the initial work. These funds were used by GAZ-SYSTEM and Energinet.dk to prepare the feasibility study.