Pioneering Spirit resumes work on TurkStream's 2nd line

The world's largest pipelaying vessel Pioneering Spirit resumed its work on the second offshore string of the TurkStream offshore natural gas pipeline towards Kiyikoy in northwestern Turkey, the project office announced Tuesday.

According to the statement, after entering the Black Sea on June 20, Pioneering Spirit completed a set of preparatory works, including lowering of the stinger and re-testing of pipelay equipment.

"The pipeline head of the second string was recovered from the bottom of the Black Sea on the border of Russian and Turkish Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) at a depth of 2,170 meters (1.35 miles). This pipeline section up to the EEZ border at kilometer point 224 was installed in 2017," the statement read.

"Calculated over the two lines, a total of 1,161 km (721 miles) of pipes has been laid so far. This corresponds to 62 percent of the combined offshore gas pipeline length," it said.

The first line of the TurkStream, which will send around 15.75 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia to Turkey was completed in April.

The second line with the same capacity as the first line will send gas to Europe through Turkey.