The Statpipe pipeline is a natural gas system, which links northern

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

gas fields with the

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

's gas export system. It transports gas from

Statfjord The Statfjord oil field is a large oil and gas field covering 580 km2 in the U.K.-Norwegian boundary of the North Sea at a water depth of 145 m, discovered in 1974 by Mobil and since 1987 operated by Equinor. It is a trans-median field cros ...

, Gullfaks,

Heimdal Heimdal is a borough in the city of Trondheim in the municipality of Trondheim in Trøndelag county, Norway. It covers the western and southwestern parts of the municipality. The village area that is also called Heimdal is located in the southe ...

, Veslefrikk, Snorre, Brage, Tordis and

gas fields.

History

The Statpipe was developed by Statoil. The development plan was approved by the Norwegian Parliament ( Storting) on 10 June 1981. The rich gas pipeline from Statfjord became operational on 25 March 1985 and the dry gas pipeline from

Kårstø Kårstø is an industrial facility located near the village of Susort, along the Boknafjorden, in the municipality of Tysvær in Rogaland county, Norway. The site features a number of natural gas processing plants that refine natural gas and con ...

to Ekofisk field came on stream on 15 October 1985. The Draupner S riser platform was installed in 1984 as part of the Statpipe system. In 1998, the Statpipe was connected directly with the

Norpipe Norpipe is a subsea oil and natural gas pipelines system in the North Sea. It supplies oil from the Norwegian Ekofisk and associated fields in the North Sea to the United Kingdom and natural gas to Germany. Oil pipeline The Norpipe oil pipelin ...

. On 1 January 2003, the Statpipe was merged into Gassled partnership and

Gassco Gassco is a Norwegian state owned company that operates of natural gas pipes transporting annually of 100 billion cubic meter (bcm) of natural gas from the Norwegian continental shelf to Continental Europe and Great Britain. 15% of the tot ...

became the operator of the pipeline.

Technical features

The total length of the Statpipe system is . It consists of both rich and dry gas pipelines. The long rich gas pipeline runs from Statfjord field to the Kårstø gas processing plant. It has branch lines from Snorre and Gulfaks fields. The internal diameter of this pipe is and capacity is 9.7 billion cubic metre (bcm) of natural gas per year. The first leg of the dry gas pipeline runs from Kårstø to the Draupner S riser platform in the North Sea. The length of this line is . The internal diameter of the pipe is and capacity is 7.6 bcm of natural gas per year. The second leg runs for from the Heimdal platform in the North Sea to Draupner S. The diameter of this pipe is and capacity 11 bcm per year. The Draupner S riser platform ties the Statpipe lines from Heimdal and Kårstø together for onward transmission to Ekofisk. The internal diameter of this section is , and it runs for further south, where a bypass around Ekofisk complex takes the Statpipe directly into Norpipe. In summary the pipelines are as follows. The details of the Statpipe riser platforms are as follows.

Ownership

The pipeline is owned by Gassled, operated by Gassco, and the technical service provider is Statoil.

References

External links

{{Portal, Norway, Energy
Statpipe rich gas (Gassco website)

Statpipe dry gas (Gassco website)

Statpipe (Statoil website)
Energy infrastructure completed in 1985 Natural gas pipelines in Norway North Sea energy Pipelines under the North Sea 1985 establishments in Norway