Mongstad is an industrial site in

Vestland Vestland is a Counties of Norway, county in Norway. The county is located in Western Norway, and its administrative centre is Bergen, where the executive and political leadership is based. The County governor (Norway), County Governor is based in ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. The site sits on the border of the municipalities of Alver and

Austrheim Austrheim is a municipality in the Nordhordland region of Vestland county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Årås. Other villages in the municipality include Austrheim (village), Austrheim and Kaland, Aust ...

, with most of the site in Alver. The site features an

oil refinery An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial processes, industrial process Factory, plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refining, refined into products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, Bitumen, asphalt base, ...

for

Equinor Equinor ASA (formerly Statoil and StatoilHydro) is a Norwegian multinational energy company headquartered in Stavanger, Norway. It is primarily a petroleum company, petroleum company operating in 36 countries with additional investments in renew ...

and other

oil companies The following is a list of notable companies in the petroleum industry that are engaged in petroleum exploration and production. The list is in alphabetical order by continent and then by country. This list does not include companies only involved ...

, including

Shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses Science Biology * Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...

. At Mongstad, Equinor has a

crude oil Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring u ...

terminal with a capacity of . The

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manch ...

at Mongstad is the largest in Norway, measured in

tonnage Tonnage is a measure of the capacity of a ship, and is commonly used to assess fees on commercial shipping. The term derives from the taxation paid on '' tuns'' or casks of wine. In modern maritime usage, "tonnage" specifically refers to a cal ...

. The refinery at Mongstad is modern, and has been extensively upgraded, with a capacity of 12 million tonnes of crude oil per year (230,000

barrels per day A barrel is one of several units of volume applied in various contexts; there are dry barrels, fluid barrels (such as the U.K. beer barrel and U.S. beer barrel), oil barrels, and so forth. For historical reasons, the volumes of some barrel unit ...

). The refinery is the largest in Norway, though medium-sized by European standards. It is owned by a company called Mongstad Refining, of which Equinor is the sole owner (since 2012).Statoil - Mongstad Facilities
/ref> All the crude oil refined at Mongstad comes from the

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

. The largest production is

petrol Gasoline (North American English) or petrol ( Commonwealth English) is a petrochemical product characterized as a transparent, yellowish, and flammable liquid normally used as a fuel for spark-ignited internal combustion engines. When formul ...

, diesel,

jet fuel Jet fuel or aviation turbine fuel (ATF, also abbreviated avtur) is a type of aviation fuel designed for use in aircraft powered by Gas turbine, gas-turbine engines. It is colorless to straw-colored in appearance. The most commonly used fuels for ...

, and light petroleum products. The heaviest components are used to make petrol coke, an important ingredient in anodes for

aluminum Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

production. In 2010, Equinor and Ørsted opened the Mongstad Power Station, a

natural gas Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...

-fired

thermal power plant A thermal power station, also known as a thermal power plant, is a type of power station in which the heat energy generated from various fuel sources (e.g., coal, natural gas, nuclear fuel, etc.) is converted to electrical energy. The heat ...

, to provide the site with heat energy and

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

, as well as power to the Troll gas field.

History

The first use of the site was in 1975, when

Statoil Equinor ASA (formerly Statoil and StatoilHydro) is a Norwegian multinational energy company headquartered in Stavanger, Norway. It is primarily a petroleum company operating in 36 countries with additional investments in renewable energy. In th ...

opened its refinery. At the end of the 1980s, the refinery was expanded to the tune of , resulting in the Mongstad scandal after a overexpenditure on the facility, costing several Statoil executives their jobs. In the time of the "Mongstad scandal" as it was called, a "Mong" was colloquially used as a term to represent the amount of . Statoil built a natural gas-fired thermal power plant at Mongstad in 2010. The carbon dioxide emissions that were predicted to result aroused public controversy as the project was being built.

External links

References

Oil refineries in Norway Ports and harbours of Norway Equinor Norsk Hydro Alver (municipality) Austrheim Oil terminals {{Vestland-geo-stub