THE new 'gas year' started on 1 October with Norwegian gas exports via the southern section of the new Langeled pipeline arriving into the British market. Prime ministers Tony Blair and Jens Stoltenberg will conduct the official opening of Langeled in London on 16 October. The new pipeline system originates at the giant Ormen Lange gasfield offshore Norway and will ultimately extend for around 1320km via the Sleipner platform to a landfall at Easington in the UK. "This is an important milestone for Norway and the Langeled licence partners. With Langeled, we will have even greater flexibility in the Norwegian gas transport system, enabling us to send even more gas to the British market," says Hydro's head of the Markets sector, senior vice president Jørgen C. Arentz Rostrup. The 30-in, 120-km long Ormen Lange-Nyhamna section of the pipeline was ready for operation earlier this year, and the 42-in, 600-km section from Nyhamna to Sleipner is under construction. The 44-in, 600-km long southern section from Sleipner to Easington was completed last month, and was scheduled to commence operation on 1 October, but in fact operator Hydro has been selling gas from Sleipner via Langeled since 27 September. The gas has been sold on the British gas exchange, National Balancing Point (NBP). "The Langeled project will involve welding over 100,000 pipe sections to create the world's longest subsea pipeline with a length of 1,200km, as well as the modifications to Sleipner and the construction of the Easington reception facility. It has been a tremendous logistical and HSE challenge," says Hydro's senior vice president Tom Røtjer, who is responsible for the Ormen Lange and Langeled development. "We are thrilled at being able now to pipe gas through the southern part of Langeled, which connects the gas intersection point, Sleipner, on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, with Easington in England. We are also ready to lay the final pipeline sections on the northern part of Langeled that will connect the processing facility on Nyhamna in Aukra with Sleipner," he said. Hydro is operator for the Ormen Lange/Langeled development project, while Statoil has project management responsibility for Langeled in conjunction with Hydro. On 1 September, Gassco took over the operatorship of Langeled and the Easington terminal. Langeled is the second direct export pipeline to Great Britain from the Norwegian continental shelf, with the capacity to transport 70m cuft/d of gas. When production from the Ormen Lange comes on stream in October, 2007, this field in the Norwegian Sea will be able to supply Great Britain with 20% of its gas requirement for several decades. Since 2001, Hydro has doubled gas exports from 5 to 10bn cum/yr: it is expected that the escalation of supplies will continue and that exports will amount to approximately 16bn cum in 2010 when Ormen Lange reaches plateau production. At that point Norway will go from being the world's third largest gas exporter to the second largest.