The Balgzand Gas Plant is a natural gas processing plant (''gasbehandelingsinstallatie'') in the Netherlands.
History
Discovery of offshore gas near the Netherlands began in 1968 in the
Rotliegend
The Rotliegend, Rotliegend Group or Rotliegendes (german: the underlying red) is a lithostratigraphic unit (a sequence of rock strata) of latest Carboniferous to Guadalupian (middle Permian) age that is found in the subsurface of large areas in wes ...
sandstone near the
Broad Fourteens
200px, The Broad Fourteens on a map by Delisle (1743)
The Broad Fourteens is an area of the southern North Sea that is fairly consistently deep. Thus, on a nautical chart with depths given in fathoms, a broad area with many "14" notations can be ...
. A large gas field was discovered to the north in 1987, and exploration of this led to the
NOGAT Pipeline System
NOGAT (''Northern Offshore Gas Transport'') is a natural gas pipeline system which connects Dutch continental shelf with an onshore gas plant and terminal at Den Helder, the Netherlands. The system has been operational since 1992. The Danish contin ...
which leads to the plant.
The plant began running in 1992.
Operation
The gas is taken into the plant on three pipelines, and processed, then put into the domestic natural gas
Gasunie
N.V. Nederlandse Gasunie (short form: Gasunie) is a Dutch natural gas infrastructure and transportation company operating in the Netherlands and Germany. Gasunie owns the Netherlands gas transmission network with a total length of over and long ...
network.
NOGAT Pipeline System
The NOGAT Pipeline System (Northern Offshore Gastransport) connects the gas plant to gas fields to the north.
Balgzand Bacton Line
The
BBL Pipeline connects the gas plant to the
Bacton Gas Terminal
The Bacton Gas Terminal is a complex of six gas terminals within four sites located on the North Sea coast of North Norfolk in the United Kingdom. The sites are near Paston and between Bacton and Mundesley; the nearest town is North Walsham.
...
in
Norfolk
Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nort ...
in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
. A gas pipeline from here to Germany connects with the
Nord Stream 1
Nord Stream (German-English mixed expression; german: Nord and en, Stream, literally 'North Stream'; russian: Северный поток, ''Severny potok'') is a pair of offshore natural gas pipelines in Europe that run under the Baltic Sea ...
pipeline. It began production on 1 December 2006 and is 235 km long.
Structure
It is situated near the junction of the
N99 and N9 motorways in
North Holland, east of the
De Kooy Airfield
De Kooy Airfield ( nl, Vliegveld De Kooy) is an airfield south of Den Helder, Netherlands, named after the nearby hamlet De Kooy. It serves as both a civilian airport under the name Den Helder Airport and a naval airport under the name ''Mar ...
(Den Helder Airport).
Centrica gas fields
F3-FA
The field was discovered in 1971. The F3-FA gas field is operated by
Centrica
Centrica plc is a British multinational energy and services company with its headquarters in Windsor, Berkshire. Its principal activity is the supply of electricity and gas to consumers in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
It is the largest ...
of the UK, who have owned it since August 2009. The water depth is around 40 metres.
F3-FA gas field
/ref> Gas is transferred via the 23 km NOGAT pipeline.
References
{{reflist
External links
NOGAT history
BBL Company
1992 establishments in the Netherlands
Buildings and structures in North Holland
Gas
Economy of North Holland
Energy infrastructure completed in 1992
Hollands Kroon
Natural gas infrastructure in the Netherlands
Natural gas plants
20th-century architecture in the Netherlands