Offshore Technology

Daily Newsletter

07 August 2023

Daily Newsletter

Saipem secures two contracts worth €1.8bn in Romania and Germany

OMV Petrom and GASCADE Gastransport have awarded the contracts.

Saipem has secured two contracts worth €1.8bn ($2bn) for offshore engineering and construction (E&C) work in Romania and Germany.

The first contract, valued at approximately €1.6bn, was awarded by OMV Petrom for the Neptun Deep Gas Development Project offshore Romania in the Black Sea.

The project's scope includes engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCIC) of a gas processing platform at a depth of around 100m.

It also comprises three subsea developments, a 160km-long 30in gas pipeline, and a fibre-optic cable from the platform to the Romanian coast.

The Saipem 7000 and JSD 6000 vessels will handle the offshore activities, while the gas processing platform will be constructed in Saipem's yards in Italy and Indonesia.

OMV Petrom CEO Christina Verchere said: “With the signing of this contract, we are taking a major step in the development of the Neptun Deep project – practically, this marks the beginning of the execution phase. We will continue to work at pace so that we safely produce the expected gas volumes starting in 2027.”

Saipem CEO Alessandro Puliti said: “We are proud to have been selected, after a competitive bid process, as suppliers for the EPCIC contract for the Neptun Deep development. We will use our local team, in the Technology Center near Ploiesti, for testing the materials to be used for the offshore facilities.”

The second contract was awarded by GASCADE Gastransport to install the Ostsee Anbindungsleitung pipeline in north-eastern Germany’s Pomeranian Bay.

Using its pipelay barge Castoro 10, Saipem will haul and install a 48in gas line over a distance of around 50km from the Lubmin site in northern Germany's Baltic Sea region to the Mukran port along the island of Rügen's eastern coast.

ESG 2.0 marks a shift towards stricter environmental rules

ESG is moving into a different era, which we call ESG 2.0. While ESG 1.0 was driven by voluntary corporate action, spurred by pressure from activist consumers and investors, ESG 2.0 is being driven by a new wave of government policies. The EU has taken the regulatory lead, with rules introduced or in the pipeline that will price emissions, regulate the use of the terms ‘ESG’ and ‘sustainability’ in marketing materials, and make ESG reporting mandatory. The US has taken a different approach, favoring less regulation and more financial support in the form of tax breaks for clean industry (renewables plus nuclear and hydrogen). China is planning to expand its emissions trading system to more sectors, decarbonize its heavy industry, and ramp up its use of renewables. The new policy direction is mainly motivated by the ambition to hit net zero emissions targets. But on top of this, governments are now competing for clean industry and trying to challenge China’s leadership on the production of the world’s green technologies such as solar panels and batteries, as well as the production and refinement of materials needed for energy transition such as lithium. These driving forces are leading to policy that will impact every sector, not just heavy industry, and will keep ESG near the top of the regulatory agenda over the longer term.