Earlier this year, Blue Water signed a logistics contract with Baku Shipyard covering the transport of two hull sections for the vessel “Khankendi”.

Now, the two sections weighing a total of 10,800 tons have left Singapore heading for the Caspian Sea, according to the message.

“The route goes through the Suez Canal and the Black Sea proceeding through the Russian Volga-Don river system and its 18 locks,” said the message. “The loading operations went as planned in Singapore where the sections were towed onto a waiting semi-submersible vessel by use of tug boats.”

The sections are 140 meters long, 16 meters wide and 17 meters high. Together they make up the hull for the vessel “Khankendi” - a new SCV (Subsea Construction Vessel). Once completed, “Khankendi” will be deployed for the Shah Deniz field, which is located off the shore in Azerbaijan.

Baku Shipyard LLC is a joint venture of SOCAR, Azerbaijan Investment Company (AIC) and Keppel Offshore & Marine. It was opened by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in September 2013.

Keppel owns some 10 percent share of the shipyard and is fully responsible for its management and operation. The largest shareholders are SOCAR with 65 percent share and AIC, which owns a quarter of the enterprise’s shares.

The shipyard is designed for constructing a large range of specialized and merchant ships, including multi-purpose vessels, such as platform supply vessels, as well as tankers and cargo ships. The enterprise also has ship-repair capabilities.

The contract for development of the Shah Deniz offshore field was signed on June 4, 1996. The field’s reserve is estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas. The shareholders are: BP, operator (28.8 percent), AzSD (10 percent), SGC Upstream (6.7 percent), Petronas (15.5 percent), Lukoil (10 percent), NICO (10 percent) and TPAO (19 percent).

As part of the Stage 2 of the Shah Deniz development, the gas will be exported to Turkey and European markets by expanding the South Caucasus Pipeline and the construction of Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline and Trans-Adriatic Pipeline.

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