TRIESTE – The Piomboni yard in Marina di Ravenna yesterday cleared the sea transport of an offshore structure weighing more than 5,200 tonnes, built over three years by the historic Ravenna-based company Rosetti Marino for installation in the Libyan oil fields of the Bouri field, 170 km off the North African coast.
The infrastructure consists of seven steel decks standing 45 metres high, 190 kilometres of internal cables and 2.4 million man-hours. It is travelling by barge towards Malta, where the Saipem 7000 crane vessel will lift it and carry out its offshore installation.
The plant’s function is to capture the natural gas that has for decades been flared during oil extraction, treating and compressing it so that it can be used. Once fully operational, the module could recover up to three million cubic metres per day of methane currently dispersed, drastically reducing CO₂ emissions in the area and bringing Libya closer to its 2030 target of eliminating offshore flaring.
The project was commissioned by Mellitah Oil & Gas, jointly owned by Eni and Libya’s state-owned NOC, with Saipem acting as general contractor. For Rosetti Marino, it is an order worth around 400 million dollars, out of a total project investment of 1.3 billion. The recovered gas will primarily serve Libya’s domestic needs, but any surplus could reach Italy via the GreenStream pipeline.