The Sture terminal
The Sture terminal in the Municipality of Øygarden in Hordaland is a major tanker port for crude oil.
The terminal receives crude oil from the Oseberg area through the 115 kilometre Oseberg transport system (OTS) from Oseberg field centre, and crude oil from the Grane field through the 212 kilometre Grane oil pipeline (GOP). The Svalin field was connected via the Grane pipeline in 2014. Crude oil from the Edvard Grieg field has been transported to Sture via GOP since the end of 2015, and from 2016 the Ivar Aasen field will be connected by the same pipeline with more oil for Sture.
The plant has two jetty facilities which can accommodate oil tankers up to 300,000 dead weight tonnes (dwt), five crude oil caverns with a capacity of one million cubic metres, a 60,000 cubic metre LPG cavern and a 200,000 cubic metre ballast water cavern. Stabilised crude oil and LPG mix are stored in rock chambers and then shipped out via the jetty. LPG mix and naphtha are also exported from the terminal via the Vestprosess pipeline to Mongstad.
Today, some 120 oil and LPG tankers dock at the facility each year. This figure will increase when the Edvard Grieg and Ivar Aasen fields are connected.
VOC recovery
The terminal also has a facility for recovering environmentally important VOCs (volatile gases) released when tankers are loaded.
The processing facility at the terminal recovers the lightest components from the crude oil. These are taken out of the LPG mix (liquefied petroleum gases) and naphtha.
The Sture terminal receives oil and condensate through the following pipelines:
OTS (oil and condensate)
- Oseberg field centre
- Oseberg C
- Oseberg East
- Oseberg South
- Tune
- Brage
- Veslefrikk/Huldra
GOP (oil)
- Grane field
Products from the Sture terminal
- Oseberg blend—crude oil and condensate from seven platforms.
- LPG mix—mixture of propane and butane.
- Naphtha—made up of pentanes and hexanes. Used together with crude oil in refineries.
- Fuel gas—methane and ethane, used for heating the process at the terminal.
- Grane blend—crude oil from Grane and Svalin
Owners:
Statoil (operator) 36.24%
Petoro AS 48.38%
ConocoPhillips 2.40%
ExxonMobil 4.33%
Total 8.65%
