Eight gas transport systems belonging to Statoil and nine other companies are being merged today, 20 December, into a common ownership structure under the name GasLed.
The agreement on this unitisation was signed during a press conference at the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy in Oslo this afternoon.
Statoil has a 20.4 per cent interest in the new company, where its partners are Petoro, Norsk Hydro, TotalFinaElf, ExxonMobil, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Agip, Fortum and Norsea Gas.
In addition to creating GasLed, the partners have also concluded a collaboration agreement for the restructured system.
“The new ownership structure is important for the companies since it both simplifies and improves the transport system,” explains Statoil project manager Erik Kjos-Hanssen in Natural Gas.
“That’s because we achieve a number of commercial simplifications and administrative savings.
“Securing unified ownership for the transport systems also reduces the chance that conflicts of interest might arise between the various partners.”
New regulations were adopted by the government today to govern access to Norway’s offshore gas transport systems and determine tariffs for leasing capacity from GasLed.
The new company embraces the transport systems previously known as Åsgard Transport, Statpipe, Europipe II, Zeepipe, Franpipe, Oseberg Gas Transport, Vesterled and Norpipe.
It also includes the gas treatment complex at Kårstø north of Stavanger as well as three receiving terminals at Emden in northern Germany and one at St Fergus in the UK.
Ownership of the receiving terminals at Zeebrugge in Belgium and Dunkerque in France will also be adjusted following the creation of GasLed.
The company will be operational from 1 January.
For more information, see the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy's web site.