Installing 70 kilometres of the future

To reduce dependence on Russian oil and gas imports, Germany's first LNG terminal was built in Wilhelmshaven in 2022. Since then regasified liquefied natural gas has been flowing into the Etzel gas storage facility via a 3.3-kilometre-long high-pressure pipeline.

The Pipeline of the Future project
But that was only the beginning. Tellingly labelled the 'Pipeline of the Future', EWE Netz GmbH subsequently planned a 70-kilometre pipeline to extend the link from the LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven. The aim is to ensure a secure energy supply for up to four million households in the region.

Approval and installation in record time
Thanks to the amendment to the LNG Acceleration Act (LNGG) passed on 7 October 2022, work on the project got going ahead of schedule. It took only about nine months from the planning approval decision in April 2023 to commissioning in December 2023.
    The fact that everything went so swiftly was also attributable to the efficiency and flexibility of Mannesmann Line Pipe. Head of Sales Konrad Thannbichler recalls: "Given the urgency of securing the energy supply, we naturally did everything humanly possible to produce and deliver the required steel pipes in record time."

Meticulous production planning
Pre-pipes for the necessary welding tests were supplied in advance in December 2022. Once EWE placed its order, meticulous production planning got underway. 18,500 tonnes of hot-rolled wide strip had to be made available within a very short space of time.
    As soon as specific delivery dates had been agreed, production planning proper could begin for the pipeline, which has a transport capacity of up to 6 billion cubic metres per year. An entire team of experienced employees from the purchasing, production, quality control, coating, external services, shipping and logistics departments was involved in the production at short notice of the pipes designated Mannesmann H2ready^®.
    Starting in January 2023, more than 500 coils of pre-material arrived by rail in Hamm for the production of around 4,000 pipes with a diameter of 610 mm. Required were lengths of 12 and 18 m with wall thicknesses of 14.3 to 16.2 mm.

Logistical tour de force
The planning for shipping and delivery logistics got underway at the same time. Manuel Simm was involved in the project throughout. "We thought about the best way to transport around 70 km of pipes from Hamm to the destination region of Wilhelmshaven. By truck, we would have needed almost 850 journeys to the respective storage locations. Including the return trips, that would have been roughly 400,000 truck kilometres, or almost ten times around the earth."

Reverting to rail
Once again, the solution lay with rail transport. The finished pipes were loaded straight from the production line in Hamm onto special freight cars and shipped north on complete trains from March to August 2023.
    14 freight trains, each some 500 metres long, arrived at Jade-Weser-Port station to be unloaded by Finke Spezialtransporte GmbH. The logistics specialists at Mannesmann Line Pipe planned the exact quantities required for the storage areas or routed the pipes straight to the installation sites. “In hindsight and in theory, it sounds quite simple, but in day-to-day operations it was pretty hectic,” Simm recalls.
    This was because pipe-laying was carried out at several locations simultaneously. At peak times, up to 800 employees were working on several sites at the same time so as to keep to the tight schedule.

Installation project with unexpected momentum
"Although some of the quantities were changed after the order was placed, the project unexpectedly gathered the kind of momentum one can only wish for in many other fields," Simm continues. And this also made itself felt in the progress of this project. On a site visit, Sales Manager Konrad Thannbichler was also astonished: "I have never seen pipes being laid at such a pace in my entire career. Either in Germany or anywhere else."

Polypropylene outer coating for HDD boreholes
And this applied not only to the 'straightforward' sections, but also to the numerous crossings of roads, railway tracks, canals and rivers.
    "In total, we also supplied about 15 km of pipes for challenging HDD boreholes," says Simm. The polypropylene outer coating proved to be ideal for this application. "This is where I'd like to single out Rombouts Kunststof Techniek B.V., which recoated over 800 weld seams immaculately for the HDD boreholes." All pipe pulls went smoothly and without complications.

Ceremony with the 'Key to the Energy Transition'
On 18 March 2024, the Pipeline of the Future went officially into operation. EWE CEO Stefan Dohler and Stephan Weil, Lower Saxony's then Minister President, jointly turned the symbolic 'Key to the Energy Transition'.
    For Wilhelmshaven, this marked its start as a hub for green energy. The new pipeline not only secures supplies to the region, for plans are also already being made here for the future with hydrogen.

Green Wilhelmshaven Terminal
At present, the Wilhelmshaven terminal still receives ‘only’ the bulk of Germany’s LNG, but that is set to change radically in the near future. In addition to renewable electricity from offshore wind power, ship-based hydrogen imports in the form of green or blue ammonia are also to arrive here. The ambitious project is called the Green Wilhelmshaven Terminal (GWT).
    Offshore electricity capacity is estimated at over 4 GW per year, and an ammonia import terminal and a 1 GW electrolysis plant for hydrogen production are to be built by 2030. Combined, these could then supply around 300,000 tonnes of green hydrogen per year. 

The future is H2ready^®
The pipeline was therefore installed entirely to H2ready^® standards. A switch to hydrogen is already planned for 2028, which would make the Pipeline of the Future one of the first pipelines to import hydrogen into Germany.
    But that alone is not the entire future for EWE. For it is the combination of hydrogen production and efficient storage that makes the energy supply sustainable and fit for the future.

Converting wind into hydrogen
In the windy region of north-western Germany, there are many hours each year when more electricity is generated than consumed. Once the surplus reaches a certain point, so-called redispatch becomes necessary, which involves intervening in the grids in order to regulate the feed-in of renewable energies, among other things. EWE already has to intervene in electricity generation more than 5,000 times a year to uphold grid stability.
    To ensure that excess energy is not left unused, special electrolysis capacities are needed for hydrogen production. Together with partners, EWE is planning to invest over €500 million in such an electrolysis plant in Emden. From 2028, this plant is set to produce more than one terawatt hour of hydrogen per year. And excellent provision has already been made for storage, as EWE Netz GmbH has a working gas volume of around 20 terawatt hours at three storage sites in north-west Germany.
    The connection to the hydrogen core network will then facilitate the future distribution of energy – via H2ready^® pipes from Mannesmann Line Pipe.