THE GIANT STILL MOVING

When I saw a photograph of the Saipem 7000 passing through Istanbul, it brought back memories. ( Getty images )

Many years ago my recruitment agency supplied pipeline welding inspectors to Saipem projects around the world. If you worked in offshore construction, pipelines or major energy projects, you knew the name.

For those outside oil and gas, this may look like just another vessel. It isn't.

The Saipem 7000 is the world's third largest semi-submersible crane vessel ever built, and for decades it has helped install platforms, subsea infrastructure and pipelines on some of the world's biggest energy projects.

You don't move a vessel like this unless there is serious work waiting at the other end.

Its travelling from Libya to Romania.

Off Libya, the Saipem 7000 has just finished lifting a gas recovery module into place on the Bouri field, part of a project designed to stop gas being flared and instead pipe it ashore for use and export.

Now it's heading to the Black Sea, where a 7,500 tonne jacket built in Sardinia is on its own journey to the same waters.

When the two meet, the Saipem 7000 will upend that jacket from horizontal to vertical and lower it onto the seabed to anchor the platform for Neptun Deep, the project designed to reverse Romania's declining gas production.

Two countries. Two different problems. The same vessel solving both.

The work hasn't disappeared. It has simply moved.