Onshore facilities

NGL
At Kollsnes the wet gas (NGL, natural gas liquids) is separated from the gas, and the resulting dry gas is compressed before large delivery compressors inject it into the pipeline systems which supply the gas to customers.

Kvitebjørn and Visund
In 1999 it was decided to bring the gas from Kvitebjørn ashore at Kollsnes, and the gas from this field has a composition that makes it suitable for processing into higher-grade products.

Following this decision, a new plant was built to extract wet gas from the rich gas from Kvitebjørn. The new plant ushered in a new era at Kollsnes when it went into operation on 1 October 2004. Since October 2005, gas from the Visund field has also been brought ashore at Kollsnes. With a capacity of 26 million Sm3 of gas per day and great flexibility, the new NGL facility can also refine gas from future fields as they are developed.

Vestprosess
The Vestprosess pipeline connects the facilities at Kollsnes to those at Mongstad, where wet gas from Kollsnes is fractioned into propane, butane and naphtha.

Owner: Gassled
Operator: Gassco
Technical operation: Equinor

The first gas reached the facility on 25 July 1985, and the first dry gas was sent from Kårstø to Emden in Germany on 15 October the same year. Since 1993 the plant has also been able to receive and stabilise condensate from the Sleipner field. In 2000 the facility was ready to receive gas from Åsgard and other fields in the Norwegian Sea through the Åsgard Transport pipeline. Since 2014 the plant has also been able to receive and stabilise condensate/light oil from the Gudrun field.

The latest developments at Kårstø have brought a large increase in its capacity to receive and process gas. Around 90 million standard cubic metres of rich gas can flow through the plant every day.

Wet gas
At the processing plant, wet gas (NGL—natural gas liquids) is separated from the rich gas and split into the products propane, normal butane, isobutane, naphtha and ethane. Propane is stored in two large rock chambers (caverns) with a total capacity of 90,000 tonnes, while butane, isobutane, naphtha and ethane are stored in tanks.

Production of LPG, ethane and stabilised condensate/light oil results in around 500 tanker dockings per year, meaning that the Kårstø plant ranks as the world's third largest producer of LPG.

Dry gas
The dry gas is exported from Kårstø via the Europipe II pipeline to Dornum in North Germany and through the Statpipe and Norpipe pipelines to Emden.

Owner: Gassled
Operator: Gassco
Technical service provider: Equinor

At the onshore facility at Hammerfest LNG, condensate, water and CO₂ are separated from the well stream before the natural gas is cooled down to a liquid form (LNG = liquefied natural gas) and stored in dedicated tanks. The pipeline has a capacity of 7.6 billion Sm³ a year. CO₂ is separated from the natural gas and returned to the Snøhvit field, where it is injected in a separate formation under the reservoirs. The gas is subsequently exported in custom-built LNG ships.

Snøhvit is the first development in the Barents Sea, and the first major development on the Norwegian continental shelf with no surface installations. Large quantities of natural gas are brought onshore and cooled down at the most northerly export facility for LNG, Liquefied Natural Gas.

The production facilities are located on the seabed, at depths of 250–345 metres. The seabed facilities are designed to be over-trawlable, so that neither they nor fishing equipment will suffer any damage from coming into contact with each other. A total of 20 wells will be drilled here to produce gas from the Snøhvit, Askeladd and Albatross fields.

The construction of an onshore compression plant can increase the extraction rate for the Snøhvit field from 45 to 70 per cent of available gas. In practice, this means that billions more kroner in value can be extracted from the seabed off the coast of Finnmark.

Equinor’s involvement at Mongstad now includes an oil refinery, an NGL processing plant (Vestprosess), a crude oil terminal (MTDA), a heating plant and the world’s largest technology centre for CO₂ capture from flue gas. Via 83-km long pipelines, crude oil comes from the offshore installations Troll B and Troll C to the terminal at Mongstad. Here is also a separate pipeline for wet gas from the onshore facilities Kollsnes and Sture to Mongstad. From 2019, crude oil from Johan Sverdrup also lands at Mongstad.

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 companies have also been established in the Mongstad industrial area, of which the supply base at Mongstad South is the largest. Around 2,000 people are employed in this area, about 1,100 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 only one 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 at Mongstad to cover around four times Norway’s annual consumption. Approximately 80% 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 piece in the Norwegian puzzle to export 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 one pipeline from Johan Sverdrup. The storage capacity in the underground caverns is 9.44 million barrels. 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%), North Sea Infrastructure AS (23%) and ConocoPhillips (2%).

Mongstad heat plant
The heat plant at Mongstad was originally a combined heat and power plant built in 2010, which in June 2022 was converted into a heat plant. The plant converts flue gas surplus from the refinery at Mongstad into heat (steam). 

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%).

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.

After processing at Nyhamna, the gas is exported through the world's second-longest subsea gas pipeline, Langeled, which runs about 1,200 km from Nyhamna to Easington in England. Langeled was built by Statoil, now Equinor, on behalf of Hydro, the operator during the development phase. Ormen Lange produces about 70 million cubic metres of natural gas a day.

The 482 km pipeline Polarled, which was completed in September 2015, transports gas from the Aasta Hansteen field in the Norwegian Sea to Nyhamna.

The Nyhamna plant is on Gossa island, where the Langeled pipeline starts. The first part of the pipeline opened in 2006, and the entire pipeline became operational in October 2007.

Gassco is the operator of Nyhamna with Shell in charge of technical operation.

Gassco is also the operator for Langeled, while Equinor is in charge of technical operation of the pipeline.

Today the terminal receives crude oil and condensate via pipelines from the Oseberg area and from the Edvard Grieg and Grane areas. The terminal handles both stable and unstable crude oil. The unstable crude oil is stabilised to sales quality while the natural gas liquids (NGLs) are fractionated further and mainly piped to Vestprosess at Mongstad for further processing to propane and butane.

The plant has two jetty facilities which can accommodate oil tankers up to 320,000 dead weight tonnes (dwt), five crude oil caverns with a capacity of one million cubic metres, a 60,000 cubic metres LPG cavern and a 200,000 cubic metres ballast water cavern.

The crude oil sales qualities Oseberg Blend and Grane Blend are exported from the Sture terminal.

The sture terminal receives oil and condensate through the following pipelines:

Ots (oil and condensate)

• Oseberg
• Tune
• Brage
• Veslefrikk

Grane Oil Pipeline (211 km) from Grane platform to Sture terminal (oil)

• Grane
• Svalin
• Edvard Grieg
• Ivar Aasen
• Solveig and Rolvsnes are planned to commence production in 2021

Products from the Sture terminal

• Oseberg Blend crude oil – from crudes in the OTS pipeline
• LPGmix—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 crudes in Grane Oil Pipeline.

Owners:

Equinor Energy AS (operator) 36.24%
Petoro AS 48.38%
Total E&P Norge AS 12.98%
ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS 2.40%

The volumes from Tjeldbergodden account for approximately 25% of total European methanol production and about 10% of consumption. Equinor’s share in the plant is 82.01%, while ConocoPhillips Scandinavia owns 17.99%.

Gas receiving terminal and air separation plant
Alongside the methanol plant is a gas receiving terminal for natural gas from the Heidrun field, and an air separation plant.

Environment
The methanol plant at Tjeldbergodden is one of the world’s most energy-efficient large-scale methanol producers, with low CO2 emissions per tonne produced. The emissions of carbon dioxide are around 0.3 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of methanol, while the emissions of nitrogen oxide are around 120 tonnes per year.

The gas terminal is part of haltenpipe and is owned by:
Petoro 57.8%
Equinor 19.1%
ConocoPhillips Scandinavia 18,1%
Vår Energi 5%

The air separation plant is owned by:
Equinor 50.9%
Aga 37.8%
ConocoPhillips Scandinavia 11.3%