F
ollowing the construction of the Nord Stream
Pipeline from 2010 through 2012, Nord Stream AG
has transitioned from being a project company
to the operator of the 1224 km twin pipeline gas
transportation system connecting Portovaya on the Russian
Baltic coast with Lubmin, Germany. As an operator, Nord
Stream AG is focusing on safely and reliably maintaining its
main asset: the gas transportation system.
How is Nord Stream approaching integrity
management for its pipeline?
Now that we are in the operations phase, integrity
management – preserving the asset for long term operation
– is the central engineering function within Nord Stream.
We view integrity management as a holistic process,
covering functions within the whole company, from
compliance through financial departments. We began
setting up the operations-phase integrity management
during the project phase and it follows a standard
quality process: Plan-do-check-act.
The first thought in terms of integrity
management is: what could happen that
endangers integrity, what would be the
consequences and what is required to
remedy the situation? We conducted
a risk assessment, which in itself is a
Figure 1.
Statoil administered PRS
hyperbaric welding system, as used
for HWTI on Nord Stream Line 1 and
2 during their construction.
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