Norpipe


Norpipe is the undersea oil and natural gas pipelines system in the North Sea. It supplies oil from the Norwegian Ekofisk and associated fields in the North Sea to the United Kingdom and natural gas to Germany.

Oil pipeline

The Norpipe oil pipeline starts at the Ekofisk 2/4-J facility. In addition to Ekofisk the pipeline carries oil from Valhall, Hod, Gyda, Ula, Tambar, and Oselvar fields in Norwegian zone, and from several UK's oil fields, such as Fulmar and Auk. A tie-in point for UK fields is located about from Ekofisk. It has a landfall at Teesside Refinery in England.
The length of pipeline is and it has diameter of. The pipeline is owned by Norpipe Oil AS, a consortium which includes ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS, TotalFinaElf Exploration Norge AS, Statoil, Eni Norge AS, and SDFI. It is operated by ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS. The pipeline was commissioned in 1975. The Petroleum Safety Authority Norway has granted consent to use the pipeline until 2028. The Norpipe oil pipeline originally had two intermediate booster pump installations in the UK sector designated 37/4A and 36/22A, these were never used and were subsequently bypassed.

Natural gas pipeline

The long Norpipe natural gas pipeline runs from Ekofisk to a receiving terminal at Emden in Germany. The diameter of pipeline is and it has capacity of of natural gas per year. The natural gas pipeline was commissioned in 1977 and will be in use until 2028. The start-up investment was 26.4 billion Norwegian krone. The pipeline is owned by Gassled and operated by Gassco. The technical service provider is ConocoPhillips.
On 30 September 1995, a German cargo ship Reint collided with the Norpipe H7-platform in the German continental shelf. Only minimal damages to the platform, and no injuries to people were caused. The H7 platform has been off-the-service since 1999, and in 2007 a bypass pipe laid around the platform.