The first blast took place yesterday, 28 November, in the mouth of tunnel which will be the new cavern for the storage of liquid propane at the Statoil-operated Mongstad refinery near Bergen.
The Vestprosess partnership signed a contract on 12 November with the Norwegian company Mika to build the cavern.
Last year the existing cavern was affected by a rock fall, which led to severe ice formation and reduced storage capacity. The new cavern will be about the same size as the old one – 33 metres high, 20 metres wide and with a storage capacity of 60,000 cubic metres.
The new cavern will be ready in November 2003.