Ormen Lange is a

natural gas field A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the prese ...

on the Norwegian continental shelf. It is situated northwest of

Kristiansund Kristiansund (, ; historically spelled Christianssund and earlier named Fosna) is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality on the western coast of Norway in the Nordmøre district of Møre og Romsdal counties of Norway, county. The admin ...

, where seabed depths vary between . The field is named after the famous

longship Longships, a type of specialised Viking ship, Scandinavian warships, have a long history in Scandinavia, with their existence being archaeologically proven and documented from at least the fourth century BC. Originally invented and used by th ...

'' Ormen Lange'' of

Olaf Tryggvason Olaf Tryggvason (960s – 9 September 1000) was King of Norway from 995 to 1000. He was the son of Tryggvi Olafsson, king of Viken ( Vingulmark, and Rånrike), and, according to later sagas, the great-grandson of Harald Fairhair, first King ...

, a 10th-century

Viking Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

king of Norway.

History

Production of gas began with three wells in September 2007. The King and Queen of Norway attended the official opening of this project, delivered on time and within budget, on 6 October 2007, at the football stadium in

Molde Molde () is a List of towns and cities in Norway, town and the seat of Molde Municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is located in the Traditional districts of Norway, traditional district of Romsdal. It is located on the Romsdal Pen ...

. During the opening, King Harald officially opened the terminal which would supply

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

with enough

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 ...

to cover 20% of its total annual needs. The proposal to build the Langeled subsea pipeline, the world’s second longest subsea export

pipeline A pipeline is a system of Pipe (fluid conveyance), pipes for long-distance transportation of a liquid or gas, typically to a market area for consumption. The latest data from 2014 gives a total of slightly less than of pipeline in 120 countries ...

after

Nord Stream 1 Nord Stream (Denglisch, German–English mixed expression for "North Stream 1"; ) is a pair of offshore natural gas pipeline transport, pipelines in Europe that run under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany. It consists of the Nord Stream 1 ( ...

, was approved in February 2003. The 1,166 km (725 mi) pipeline runs across 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 ...

from Nyhamna to the Easington Gas Terminal near the mouth of the

Humber The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Trent, Trent. From there to the North Sea, it forms ...

estuary on the UK’s east coast.

Reserves

The reservoir is approximately long and wide, and lies about below

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...

. Recoverable gas reserves are estimated to be ~300 billion cubic meters.

Technical description

The Ormen Lange field has been developed without using conventional offshore platforms. Instead, 24 subsea wellheads in four seabed templates on the ocean floor are connected directly by two pipelines to an onshore process terminal at Nyhamna. After processing, the gas is exported by the world's second longest subsea gas pipeline - Langeled pipeline - approximately from Nyhamna to Easington in

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. The northern section of the export pipeline has a diameter of , and the section from Sleipner to Easington has a diameter of . The field produces 70 million cubic meters of

per day. Total cost is estimated to reach 66

billion Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions: * 1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is now the most common sense of the word in all varieties of ...

Norwegian krone The krone (, currency sign, abbreviation: kr (also NKr for distinction); ISO 4217, code: NOK), plural ''kroner'', is the currency of the Kingdom of Norway (including List of possessions of Norway, overseas territories and dependencies). It was t ...

r (around

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

12 billion) by the time of completion. The onshore facility at Nyhamna was designed by

Aker Solutions Aker Solutions ASA is a Norwegian engineering firm headquartered in Oslo. The firm's production is focused on energy infrastructure, including systems and services required to de-carbonize oil and gas production, build wind-to-grid infrastruc ...

Engineering in 2003-2007.

Natural conditions

Extreme natural conditions at the site (subzero temperatures part of the year, stormy seas, strong underwater currents, uneven seabed) put great demands on the technology used in the project. The

Storegga Slide The three Storegga Slides () are amongst the largest known submarine landslides. They occurred at the edge of Norway's continental shelf in the Norwegian Sea, approximately 6225–6170 BCE. The collapse involved an estimated length of coastal s ...

s that occurred in the area about 8,000 years ago have been investigated, with the conclusion that the risk of recurrence is negligible.

Ownership and operators

Several companies share ownership of Ormen Lange. * Petoro AS: 36.4850% *

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 ...

: 25.3452% * Norske Shell: 17.8134% *

DONG Energy Dong or DONG may refer to: Places * Dong Lake, or East Lake, a lake in China * Dong, Arunachal Pradesh, a village in India * Dong (administrative division) (동 or 洞), a neighborhood division in Korea Person names Surnames * Dǒng (surna ...

: 14.0208% *

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 ...

: 6.3356% Ormen Lange was operated by

during the development stage. On 30 November 2007, Norske Shell took over as the operator.

References

External links

*
Ormen Lange in Aftenbladet Energi Interactive Energy Map

Ormen Lange (Statoil website)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ormen Lange (Gas Field) Natural gas fields in Norway North Sea energy Equinor oil and gas fields Former Ørsted (company) oil and gas fields Shell plc oil and gas fields ExxonMobil oil and gas fields