12 November 2007
A £1.4bn project to create a massive
pipeline capable of carrying a fifth of the natural gas needed by
Britain has been completed in South Wales.
The 300km pipeline, which runs from
Pembrokeshire to Gloucestershire, was officially opened by UK
Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks who marked the occasion by opening a
valve into the final section of the line at Felindre, near
Swansea.
A team of over 50 people from Capita Symonds’
Manchester office – led by Director Karl Johnson – provided full
project services for the pipeline’s new 200km sections - Milford
Haven to Aberdulais and Felindre to Brecon - which have now been
connected to the existing gas network to create the huge link
between England and Wales.
The Capita Symonds team worked across
disciplines such as project management; contract / commercial
management; Quality and Health & Safety Auditing; environmental
/ archaeological advisors; land liaison; and programme
management.
Starting next year, double-hulled vessels - dubbed ‘Q Max’
tankers - will take Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) from Qatar’s titanic
North Field - the world’s biggest liquid natural gas reservoir - to
Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire at a temperature of -165C (this
keeps the fuel as a dense liquid, making it easier to
transport).
The Welsh terminals will then regasify the LNG
and send it through the pipeline under high pressure to tens of
thousands of businesses and households across Britain and Europe.
National Grid says the scheme, which has taken three years to
finish, is needed to cope with growing demand.
The fact that the pipeline has made 140 river and water crossings, passed under 19 railway lines and 216 roads - two of them motorways – highlights how vast a project this has been.
Karl Johnson says: “It’s been a mammoth
project with over 2,000 people involved from a variety of companies
and disciplines. The fact that the pipeline has made 140 river and
water crossings, passed under 19 railway lines and 216 roads - two
of them motorways – highlights how vast a project this has been.
The whole team can be immensely proud - it's a tremendous
engineering achievement.”
Mike Nuttall, Capita Symonds Project Services
Manager, credits the effort of the Capita Symonds team at the
project’s initial stages as being vital to the programme’s ultimate
success. Mike says: “The project wouldn’t have been successfully
completed without the superb pre-construction work undertaken by
the whole team.”
The project has also resulted in two
significant archaeological finds - a Roman road near Yscir, west of
Brecon, and a possible Bronze Age canoe near Milford Haven.