The Nyhamna Gas Plant is a large and significant

natural-gas processing 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 ...

plant in

Aukra Municipality Aukra is List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Møre og Romsdal Counties of Norway, county, Norway. It is part of the Districts of Norway, region of Romsdalen. The administrative centre is the village of Aukrasanden, Falkhytta, which ...

Møre og Romsdal Møre og Romsdal (; ) is a Counties of Norway, county in the northernmost part of Western Norway, Western Norway. It borders the counties of Trøndelag, Innlandet, and Vestland. The county administration is located in the Molde (town), town of M ...

, Norway. As of January 2018, Norway was the world's third-largest natural gas exporter, after Russia and Qatar.

History

Construction of the plant began around 2005, and was expected to cost about , including the extremely long undersea pipeline. The gas plant was built for the Ormen Lange gas field, named after a ship of a Viking king. The head of the Ormen Lange project was Tom Rotjer. The site was built by

Norsk Hydro Norsk Hydro ASA (often referred to as just ''Hydro'') is a Norway, Norwegian aluminium and renewable energy company, headquartered in Oslo. It is one of the largest aluminium companies worldwide. It has operations in some 50 countries around th ...

, with partnership with

Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company, headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New ...

ExxonMobil Exxon Mobil Corporation ( ) is an American multinational List of oil exploration and production companies, oil and gas corporation headquartered in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston. Founded as the Successors of Standard Oil, largest direct s ...

and Petoro which is owned by the Norwegian government. When being built, the plant was Norway's largest construction project. In 2005, Norway supplied 15% of the UK's natural gas. Once the gas plant was up and running, 20% of the UK's gas was coming from the Langeled pipeline. It supplies heat to around 10 million British people. Shell took over as operator on 1 December 2007.

Statnett Statnett is a Norwegian state-owned enterprise responsible for owning, operating and constructing the stem power grid in Norway. The company has its headquarters in Oslo, Norway. Statnett also owns 30% of the Nord Pool Spot along with other No ...

built a gas power plant in 2008, but it only operated 400 hours in 10 years, and was put up for sale.

Operation

It is situated at Nyhamna on the island of Gossa in

. The island municipality has about 3,600 residents.

Langeled pipeline

The Langeled pipeline was built for

, to begin operation in 2007, via the

Sleipner gas field Oil from the Sleipner field. The Sleipner gas field is a natural gas field in the block 15/9 of the North Sea, about west of Stavanger, Norway. Two parts of the field are in production, Sleipner West (proven in 1974), and Sleipner East (1981) ...

; as it passes through the Sleipner field, it is possible for this gas to be diverted to other countries. The pipeline travels an incredible 745 miles (1,200 km) to the Easington Gas Terminal in Yorkshire, England. The pipeline was built around the clock, 24 hours a day, with the pipeline sections being welded on Acergy's construction ship LB200, which could lay about 4 km a day. It required 1.2 million tonnes of steel. Langeled was the responsibility of

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 ...

. The pipeline sections for the southern section were assembled at the Bredero Shaw site in

Farsund is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Agder county, Norway. It is located in the Traditional districts of Norway, traditional district of Lister Region, Lister. The administrative centre of the municipality is the Farsund (town ...

Southern Norway Southern Norway (; lit. "The Southland") is the geographical List of regions of Norway, region (''landsdel'') along the Skagerrak coast of southern Norway. The region is an informal description since it does not have any governmental function ...

(''Sørlandet''). The northern section was assembled at

Måløy Måløy () is a List of towns and cities in Norway, town in the List of municipalities of Norway, municipality of Kinn in Vestland county, Norway. It is located on the southeastern side of the Vågsøy (island), island of Vågsøy, about northea ...

in Western Norway, and the middle sections at

Sotra Sotra or Store Sotra is the name of a large island in Øygarden Municipality in Vestland county, Norway, located just west of the city of Bergen. It is part of a pair of islands called ' Sotra' and ' Litlesotra' ('small Sotra') that are part of ...

in Western Norway. From Nyhamna to Sleipner, the pipeline has a diameter, and from Sleipner to Easington it has a diameter. The section from Sleipner to Easington became operational on Sunday 1 October 2006. The project for the pipeline had begun in October 2004.

Gas fields

Ormen Lange

Ormen Lange is located about west of the gas plant. The field was discovered by Norsk Hydro in 1997. The wells were drilled by the ship ''West Navigator''. The operation of Ormen Lange was owned 18% by Norsk Hydro, 17% by Norske Shell, 36% by Petoro, 10% by Statoil, 10% by Dansk Olie og Naturgas, and 7% by ExxonMobil (Esso). Ormen Lange is Norway's second largest gas field.

References

External links

Norske Shell

Nyhamna Expansion Project
{{Royal Dutch Shell 2007 establishments in Norway Buildings and structures in Møre og Romsdal Chemical plants in Norway Energy infrastructure completed in 2007 Natural gas infrastructure in Norway Natural gas plants Norsk Hydro Shell plc buildings and structures