Equinor Mongstad
The first part of the refinery at Mongstad in Nordhordland was opened for operations in 1975. After the facility was expanded in 1989, the process capacity increased from 6.5 to 8 million tonnes of crude oil per year.
The 1990s saw the arrival of pipelines from the Troll B and Troll C platforms and from the Kollsnes and Sture land facilities to Mongstad.
Equinor’s involvement in Mongstad now includes an oil refinery, an NGL processing plant (Vestprosess), a crude oil terminal, a cogeneration plant and the world’s largest technology centre for CO2 capture from flue gas. In terms of tonnage, the harbour at Mongstad is also Norway’s largest, and one of the largest oil and product harbours in Europe, with around 1500 ships calling every year. In addition, a number of other firms have also been established in the Mongstad industrial area, of which the supply base at Mongstad South is the largest. Around 2000 people are employed in this area, about 1100 of them are linked to enterprises where Equinor is involved as an owner. The refinery at Mongstad has approximately 750 permanent employees and around 65 apprentices. During normal operations, around 300 supplier staff are also utilised each year, mainly within maintenance, modification, catering, cleaning and guard and security services.
Refinery (Equinor refining AS)
The refinery is the largest in Norway, and medium-sized in a European perspective. Most of the refinery’s production consists of petrol, diesel and aviation fuel. Enough petrol is produced here to cover around four times Norway’s annual consumption. Approximately 75% of the total production is exported. Petroleum coke, which is used to make anodes for the aluminium industry, is also produced here.
Crude oil terminal (Mongstad Terminal DA - MTDA)
The crude oil terminal is an important instrument in the Norwegian export of crude oil. A large part of all Equinor-produced oil on the Norwegian Shelf, including the State’s share, is stored temporarily at the Mongstad terminal prior to export to customers in North America, Europe and Asia. The oil to the Mongstad terminal mainly arrives through two pipelines from Troll B and Troll C and connected oil fields, and the storage capacity in the underground caverns is a whopping 9.44 million barrels. The oil from the Johan Sverdrup field will also be landed at Mongstad when production starts in the last half of 2019. MTDA is owned by Equinor (65%) and the Norwegian State (35%), and Equinor is the operator.
Vestprosess DA
NGL comes in to Mongstad in a pipeline from Kollsnes via Sture. NGL is split into e.g. naphtha, propane and butane at the Vestprosess plant. Vestprosess is owned by the State (41%), Equinor (34%), ExxonMobil (10%), Shell (8%), Total (5%) and ConocoPhillips (2%).
Mongstad cogeneration plant
The cogeneration plant at Mongstad started production in December 2010. The plant was part of the Energiverk Mongstad project, which also built a gas pipeline from Kollsnes to Mongstad, and completed an upgrade of the refinery’s process plant. Equinor currently owns 100 per cent of the cogeneration plant, and is also the operator.
The cogeneration plant supplies the refinery at Mongstad with electricity and heat (steam). Pursuant to agreement with the owners in the Troll licence, it also supplies electricity to the Troll A platform and the gas processing plant at Kollsnes via the power grid.
CO2 Technology Centre Mongstad
Mongstad is also home to the world’s largest technology centre for development and testing of CO2 capture technology. The facility started operation in 2013, and it is owned and operated by Gassnova (77.5%), Equinor (7.5%), Shell (7.5%) and Sasol (7.5%).
Technology Centre Mongstad DA (TCM) is the world’s largest test facility for CO2 capture. The knowledge acquired from the TCM facility is an important contributor towards the development of carbon capture technology.
TCM has a flexible amine plant and a chilled ammonia plant, with a combined CO2 capture capacity of 100 000 tonnes per annum, from the refinery’s two flue gas sources – which have a composition of 3.6 to 14% CO2.
Equinor is operator of TCM.
