Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has approved the expansion of the gas plant located at Nyhamna in Møre og Romsdal County.
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The expansion will help the Ormen Lange field located in the Norwegian Sea to increase its production by 25 to 30 billion standard cubic metres (sm³) of gas.
The Nyhamna expansion will comprise two parts. In the first step, the capacity of the gas plant will be expanded and includes land-based compression of gas procured from Ormen Lange.
A new compressor will maintain gas pressure at Nyhamna as pressure in the reservoir drops.
The other part of the expansion project involves development of export and process facilities for Polarled pipeline.
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By GlobalDataThis pipeline will transport gas from the Aasta Hansteen field to Nyhamna.
Polarled compression and export are slated to commence in the autumn of 2018.
NPD development and operations in the Norwegian Sea assistant director Kalmar Ildstad said: “This is a large and important project for improved recovery, and onshore compression is the first step. The next step is compression closer to the field.”
This expansion will increase Nyhamna's export capacity from 70 to 84 million sm³ per day.
The gas plant will export to the Easington gas terminal located in north-east England through Sleipner A platform in the North Sea.
In the next stage, the offshore compression solutions will be developed to increase gas production from Ormen Lange.
Shell and its partners are studying various concepts to utilise compression when the requirement occurs, which is most likely in the mid-2020s. Ormen Lange was proven in 1997, and production commenced ten years later.
The field's lifetime extends beyond 2035.
Shell is the operator with 17.81% stake and the other licensees are Petoro (36.48%), Statoil (25.35%), Dong (14.02%) and ExxonMobil (6.34%).
Image: Nyhamna gas plant. Photo: courtesy of Norwegian Petroleum Directorate.
