Saipem Aims to Finish Bulgaria-Hungary Line in 2019 (Correction)

(Corrects contract terms, paragraph 3)

Italian contractor Saipem predicts its contract associated with a Serbian gas pipeline will be completed in 18 months. Gazprom paid €27mn ($32mn) for the contract, which was awarded in June, Saipem told NGW.

Late July Saipem announced that it had been awarded onshore engineering and construction (E&C) contracts worth a total of roughly $800mn in five countries including Serbia but without going into the specifics.

It said August 1 that it was not involved in any pipelaying work. "The contents of the contract in question include the provision of engineering services and permit acquisition relating to the Serbia Natural Gas Transit Pipeline Project. We expect to complete these preliminary works within 18 months of the contract’s coming into force," it told NGW.

The new pipeline will start from at the Bulgaria-Serbia border near Zajecar and end at the Serbia-Hungary border, near Horgos, carrying Gazprom's gas from TurkStream 2.  

Russian export giant subsidiary Gastrans, who gave the October start date, announced March 5 an "open season" to collect non-binding requests for reserving the capacities of the new gas pipeline and closed it April 16. The aggregated final results were published April 30.

The current design of the pipeline foresees four exit points: one near Paracin; the second near Pancevo; one near Gospodinci; and the fourth near of Horgos.

It is still unclear where the 15.75bn m³/yr TurkStream 2 line will go. Gazprom CEO, Alexei Miller, said June 29 that Russian gas from it could be flowing through the gas pipeline networks of Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary by 2020. Bulgaria is also gearing up to win the competition for the exit route on the planned pipeline, and had been hoping that the line will come directly to Bulgaria, bypassing Turkey. Earlier, Saipem reported a first half 2018 net loss three times greater than its 1H2017 loss.