About 500 workers are currently working on 17 sites for the 500-kilometer-long BRUA gas pipeline project, according to a press release from the Ministry of Economy. Economy Minister Dănuţ Andruşcă, accompanied by Transgaz General Manager Ion Sterian, had a working visit at the end of this week on the BRUA’s Podişor Technological Node, in Giurgiu County.
“On the occasion of the working visit, the Minister of Economy was informed about the fact that, at present, workings are underway at 17 BRUA sites, with a total of about 500 workers, as scheduled. As the approximate length of the pipeline is 500 kilometers, the project is divided into 100 sections of 5 kilometers of gas pipe line in each section”, writes the press release quoted by Agerpres.
Minister Andruşcă met the team coordinating the works at the Podişor work point and checked the progress of the works at the Podişor compressing station and the BRUA gas pipeline. At Podişor, Transgaz has contracted works on three sites: the Podişor compressing station, the gas pipeline and the Podişor node.
“The development of the BRUA project by the Ministry of Economy through Transgaz is an incontestable success. This project is of great importance for Romania’s energy security and it is considered a strategic project for the European Union as well. I’m glad to see that the works are done as scheduled and I want to congratulate Mr. Sterian and his team for how they manage the BRUA pipeline. The project figures are really impressive: 3 compressing stations at Podişor, Bibeşti and Jupa, about 500 km of pipeline, over 500 people working at the moment, number which is expected to grow in the future. We have every reason to be proud of the effort and involvement of Romanian workers and engineers”, the Economy Minister said.
Transgaz’s general manager, Ion Sterian, presented the team that coordinates the works at Podişor and said that the entire design activity was done by Transgaz, and most of the products were contracted from Romanian companies.
“Many of the people you see on BRUA sites are also working in other areas and they are driving hundreds of kilometers a day to check the status of the works and to make sure we follow the schedule. They are dedicated people, some of them coming from other areas of Romania (Ploieşti, Botoşani), who are here far away from their families. We all realize how important this project is and we all want to succeed. There are many young people in our team, and we want to improve their abilities”, Sterian said.
The BRUA project consists of building a new gas pipeline that will connect the Technological Node at Podișor with the Gas Station at Horia, on the line Podişor-Corbu-Hurezani-Haţeg-Recaş-Horia. This new corridor aims to diversify the gas transport routes from the Caspian Sea region to Central Europe, to capitalize on new natural gas sources in the Black Sea offshore perimeters, and to capitalize the natural gas volumes from these sources on the Romanian and European market, as well as the possibility of permanent bidirectional physical flow on the interconnections with Bulgaria and Hungary.
In the 1S report this year, Transgaz showed that it has signed contracts and has issued a start order for works worth about 335 million euros related with the BRUA pipeline segment in Romania. It also received a pre-financing of 13.8 million euros from the European Commission.
Phase I of the BRUA project requires a total investment of 478.6 million euros, with December 2019 the estimated deadline for starting operations.