Statoil will install a recovery system for oil vapour released during crude oil loading on shuttle tankers at the Mongstad terminal near Bergen. The recovery plant, due to be completed at the turn of the year 2007/2008, will be delivered by Aker Kværner.
The contract with Aker Kværner is worth about NOK 115 million.
The port at Mongstad is the largest in Norway measured in tonnage, and Europe’s second largest oil port after Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Of 2,000 ship calls at Mongstad each year, 450 are by crude oil tankers. The crude oil terminal, with a storage capacity of 9.5 million barrels, can handle tankers of up to 450,000 dead weight tonnes.
About one-third of the crude oil produced by the Norwegian state and Statoil in the North Sea is stored and resold from Mongstad. The terminal is thus very important to the distribution and sale of Norwegian crude in the international market.
Statoil has been a champion of reduced emissions and volatile organic compounds (VOC) recovery during offshore loading both on the Norwegian continental shelf and internationally. Over the past four years the company has more than halved the emissions of VOC in connection with offshore loading.
VOC emissions must be eliminated from 95% of all oil stored and loaded by the end of 2006, according to a requirement established by Norwegian authorities.
Statoil’s final approval of the project is scheduled for June.