Norway hits new gas export record as Langeled pipeline opens

Wed, 15 November 2006

NORWAY’S gas exports to Europe reached a new record high of 86.6bn cum in 2005, up 3.7% from the previous year, Norway’s pipeline operator Gassco said last month, at time of the inauguration of the new Langeled pipeline, through the southern section of which gas has now begun to be transported. The pipeline is expected to supply the UK with about 20% of its total gas requirements once it has been connected to the 400bn cum Ormen Lange field in the Norwegian North Sea at the end of 2007.

Gassco said that gas exports from Norway's continental shelf to Europe were 3.1bn cum higher than last year for the period ending 1 October, 2006. Jan Hauge, vice president for product management at Gassco, attributes the rise in sales to the start-up of the Kristin gasfield in the Norwegian Sea, and an expansion in capacity at the Karsto gas-processing plant north of Stavanger. Gas exports are likely to increase even further in the 2006 gas year, as new Langeled pipeline comes into operation. "The southern leg of Langeled (pipeline)... became operational on 1 October, expanding our export capacity to the UK. And we expect a rise in gas deliveries via Karsto," Mr Hauge said. The pipeline will have a capacity of 20bn cum/yr once it is connected to the Ormen Lange field. The UK's National Grid said that the southern leg currently has an import capacity of 68m cum/d of gas, roughly 16 % of the UK's daily peak gas demand. At 8.2bn cum, December was the peak month for Norwegian gas exports over the past year. Production of NGL and condensate from Karsto and the Kollsnes processing plant near Bergen, both operated by Gassco, was 9.7m tons in 2005, a 200,000-ton increase from the previous gas year. Gassco manages Norway's gas infrastructure system for Gassled, whose owners are Statoil, Norsk Hydro, ExxonMobil, Conoco Phillips, Royal Dutch/Shell, ENI, Total , and state-owned Petoro.