The world’s most impressive offshore construction vessel is now about a sixth of the way through its first pipelaying job. And that job is the most technically challenging project yet seen in the pipeline world.

The TurkStream scheme across the Black Sea from Russia to western Turkey provides a truly appropriate maiden pipelay contract for Allseas flagship Pioneering Spirit. This huge vessel has already taken heavy lifting — the prime driver for building it — into a new league by performing single-piece removal of two full platform topsides in the North Sea.

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