Keeping oil underground

Construction begins this month in Singapore of a gigantic underground storage cavern for oil from the Middle East for all of South-East Asia. Norwegian enterprises SINTEF and Multiconsult will be responsible for management of the whole of the construction phase of the project.

SINTEF Building Research has previously been engaged as a consultant on the building of a more than 20 kilometre-long sewage tunnel under Hong Kong and is involved in the planning of subsea tunnel projects in Iceland and the Faeroes. It is also cooperating with research for the China Railway Tunnel Design Institute.

The Singapore government is the state owner of the project. The storage caverns have a total volume of 12 million cubic metres, and the first phase, which is due to start on August 17, will involve the construction of a 1.47 million cubic metre storage cavern.

A consortium comprising SINTEF, TriTech and Multiconsult will carry out the three parts of the project, project management, technical consulting and design. The project will last for five years, with a budget for the consortium totalling over £3m.