The TRNC Water Supply Pipeline Project was commissioned in October 2015 and has since supplied 75 million cubic meters (19.8 billion gallons) of fresh water per year from Turkey to TRNC via a system comprising onshore dams, pipelines, reservoirs and pump stations as well as an offshore pipeline system that includes both on-bottom and suspended (tethered) sections.

On the 8th of January 2020 an incident occurred that resulted in a loss of integrity of the offshore pipeline in the suspended section and disrupted the freshwater supply to the island.

AES immediately was deployed to the incident site to perform the initial incident assessment survey and investigation.

It was found out that the offshore pipe was ruptured from the 1st transition anchor block position. The adjacent 120ton Anchor Block #2 and #3 structures were displaced laterally by more than 20m from their initial subsea positions, rupturing the suspended chain shackle.

Several scenarios were investigated, and root cause analysis were studied in the following couple months. The results were presented to the Client that led to the final repair plans.

The complex and one of a kind offshore repair project was executed involving two Offshore Support Vessels and 4 different AHTs. Offshore repair started in August of 2020 and was successfully completed in early October with the resupply of the fresh water to the island.