300,000 tonnes of large-diameter pipes to Down Under

The Project

On the west coast of Australia, several international energy companies want to produce gas together with the local Woodside Energy. The Scarborough field is located about 375 kilometres off the coast and will be developed for production by new offshore facilities. This will require the construction of an approximately 430-kilometre-long pipeline to connect to the onshore facilities.

The development of the Scarborough project involves the installation of a floating production unit with eight wells in the initial phase and thirteen wells during the life of the Scarborough gas field. The water depth here is approximately 950 metres. The first gas should start flowing in 2026.

The Job

The world market leader for the production of large welded steel pipes, Europipe from Muelheim/Germany, has received an order from Woodside to supply large pipes with a total weight of 300,000 tonnes to Australia for the pipeline of the Scarborough project. The DREWES Group in turn received the order from Europipe to deliver these pipes in first to Kabil in Indonesia. Here, the pipes will be given a cement coating before being transported further on to Australia.

The Performance

Europipe took care of the delivery of the large pipes by rail to the German seaports of Bremen and Brake. From here, DREWES Logistics coordinated the sea transport. For the shipment, ten vessels of the Hamburg shipping company Oldendorff Carriers were taken over by DREWES Logistics under full charter and sent from the two ports on the Weser to Kabil. All the pipes were handed over to the consignee within the specified time frame and without damage.

Video: Discharging operations and intra-port logistics in Kabil, Indonesia

The Bottom Line

Europipe is a long-standing customer of the DREWES Group. A similar project for Australia with landing in Kabil was successfully completed for Europipe a few years ago. In addition, the DREWES Group can refer to many other projects for the shipment of large pipes via European ports.

Success through Teamwork

To win this large-scale contract, the DREWES Group was able to score points with its customer Europipe by combining the success factors "marketable rate", "performance" and "experience". The project was implemented in close partnership with the shipping company Oldendorff Carriers and the terminal operations in Bremen (BLG Cargo Logistics) and Brake (J. Mueller). The fact that the clearing of the vessels in the ports was carried out by DREWES Shipping, a member of the DREWES Group, also contributed to the simplification of the processes. The shipping process took about a year and was successfully completed in the summer of 2023.