The Gullfaks gas export line in the North Sea was opened for transport on Friday 16 March.
Project director Harald Vandbakk for Gullfaks satellites phase II says that the new pipe system will secure capacity to handle an increasing gas production from the entire Gullfaks area. Export capacity from the C platform is set to quadruple.
The satellite project is developing the gas reserves in the Gullfaks South and Rimfaks fields, for production by the A and C platforms.
So far, Gullfaks has exported about 13 million cubic metres of gas per day, chiefly from the Gullfaks A platform. The gas has been piped via the Statfjord field to the Statpipe system through a pipeline which will now no longer be used on a regular basis.
Deliveries will increase over the next few months and by 1 October the Gullfaks area will supply about 20 million cubic metres of gas daily, spread equally between Gullfaks A and C. Plateau level is expected in 2004, with roughly 25 million cubic metres per day.
Development operations will continue until 2003. The first goal is to complete conversion work on Gullfaks C to ready it for gas production by 1 October. The next step will then be to upgrade the gas compressors on Gullfaks A.
Gas production will increasingly take over from oil toward the end of the Gullfaks field's producing life. In a few years from now, more than half of the gas piped to Statoil's gas treatment complex at Kårstø will come from Gullfaks.