The Langeled pipeline (originally known as Britpipe) is an underwater gas pipeline transporting Norwegian

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. Before the completion of the

Nord Stream 1 Nord Stream (German-English mixed expression; german: Nord and en, Stream, literally 'North Stream'; russian: Северный поток, ''Severny potok'') is a pair of offshore natural gas pipelines in Europe that run under the Baltic Sea ...

pipeline, it was the longest subsea pipeline in the world.

History

The project was launched under the original name Britpipe. In October 2003,

Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...

ExxonMobil ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...

and

Statoil Equinor ASA (formerly Statoil and StatoilHydro) is a Norwegian state owned enterprise, state-owned multinational energy company headquartered in Stavanger. It is primarily a petroleum company, petroleum company, operating in 36 countries with ad ...

signed agreements to supply natural gas through the Britpipe. The pipeline's construction began in 2004. The largest part of the pipeline was installed by Acergy Piper, a pipe-laying ship of

Acergy Acergy S.A. was an international offshore seabed to surface engineering and construction company previously known as Stolt Offshore and Stolt Comex Seaway and was part of the Stolt-Nielsen Group until 2005. The company was registered in Luxembou ...

. Other pipe-laying ships, which were used, are

Solitaire Solitaire is any tabletop game which one can play by oneself, usually with cards, but also with dominoes. The term "solitaire" is also used for single-player games of concentration and skill using a set layout tiles, pegs or stones. These game ...

Allseas Allseas Group S.A. is a Swiss-based offshore contractor specialising in pipelay, heavy lift and subsea construction. It was founded in 1985 by owner and president Edward Heerema, employs 4,000 people and operates worldwide. The company is headqua ...

, and

Saipem 7000 The ''Saipem 7000'' is the world's third largest semi-submersible crane vessel, after the and the . It is owned by the oil and gas industry contractor Saipem S.p.A. Construction The vessel was designed by Gusto Engineering during 1984. The ve ...

Saipem Saipem S.p.A. (Società Anonima Italiana Perforazioni E Montaggi lit. ''Drilling and Assembly Italian Public Limited Company'') is an Italian multinational oilfield services company and one of the largest in the world. Until 2016 it was a subsid ...

. The pipeline was opened in two stages. The southern section ( Sleipner Riser platform to Easington) began piping gas on 1 October 2006, the northern section (

Nyhamna Nyhamna is a small peninsula on the northeast side of the island of Gossa in Aukra Municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is located along the Julsundet strait, about northeast of the village of Varhaugvika and northeast of the vil ...

to Sleipner Riser) opened in October 2007. The official opening of the project was held in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

on 16 October 2006 by then-

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...

and his Norwegian counterpart,

Jens Stoltenberg Jens Stoltenberg (born 16 March 1959) is a Norwegian politician who has been serving as the 13th secretary general of NATO since 2014. A member of the Norwegian Labour Party, he previously served as the 34th prime minister of Norway from 2000 to ...

Route

The pipeline runs through the North Sea from the

terminal in

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

via the Sleipner Riser platform in the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

Easington Gas Terminal The Easington Gas Terminal is one of six main gas terminals in the UK, and is situated on the North Sea coast at Easington, East Riding of Yorkshire and Dimlington. The other main gas terminals are at St Fergus Gas Terminal, St Fergus, Aberdeens ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The pipeline is designated to bring natural gas from the Ormen Lange gas process terminal to the UK, but through the connector at Sleipner Riser it provides also an opportunity to send gas through

Gassco Gassco is a Norwegian state owned company that operates of natural gas pipes transporting annually of 100 billion cubic meter (bcm) of natural gas from the Norwegian continental shelf to Continental Europe and Great Britain. 15% of the total ...

's existing network to

continental Europe Continental Europe or mainland Europe is the contiguous continent of Europe, excluding its surrounding islands. It can also be referred to ambiguously as the European continent, – which can conversely mean the whole of Europe – and, by ...

Technical description

The annual capacity of the Langeled pipeline is . That equates to some 20% of Britain's

peak gas Peak gas is the year in which the maximum global natural gas (fossil gas) production rate will be reached, after which the rate of production will enter its terminal decline. Although demand is peaking in the United States and Europe, it continu ...

demand. With the energy content of natural gas at 39 MJ (megajoules) per

normal cubic meter Standard temperature and pressure (STP) are standard sets of conditions for experimental measurements to be established to allow comparisons to be made between different sets of data. The most used standards are those of the International Union o ...

, the capacity energy flux is 31.5 GW (gigawatts). The Langeled pipeline supplements the

Vesterled Vesterled is a natural gas pipeline system, which runs from the Heimdal field ( Heimdal Riser platform) in the North Sea to St Fergus Gas Plant near Peterhead in Scotland. The name ''Vesterled'' is the term used by the Vikings for their westward ...

system with annual capacity about 12 bcm, which runs from Heimdal Riser platform in the North Sea to

St. Fergus St Fergus is a village in the Buchan area of Aberdeenshire, Scotland. St Fergus lies from the North Sea coast and north-west of Peterhead. The Parish of St Fergus includes the remains of Inverugie Castle and Ravenscraig Castle. The church i ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. The project cost £1.7 billion.

Nyhamna-Sleipner Riser section

The Nyhamna-Sleipner Riser leg has a diameter of and can operate with a pressure of 250

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

Hub at Sleipner Riser

At Sleipner Riser the Langeled has a connection to the existing Gassled transport system.

Sleipner Riser-Easington section

The Sleipner Riser-Easington leg has a diameter of , which makes it the largest submarine pipeline in the North Sea. Its pressure is 155 bar.

Ownership and operation

The owner of the Langeled pipeline is

Gassled Gassled is a partnership to own the offshore natural gas transportation infrastructure at the Norwegian continental shelf. Its pipelines are operated by Gassco. Gassled was created in 2002 and it became operational on 1 January 2003. Its origi ...

. The operator for Langeled is

and technical service provider is Equinor. Equinor also runs the gas export project. The principal funding of the project was provided by the syndicated loan structured by

ABN AMRO ABN or abn may refer to: Companies * ABN AMRO Group, a Dutch bank group * ABN AMRO, sometimes referred to as "ABN" in shorthand, is a Dutch state-owned bank * Algemene Bank Nederland, a now-defunct Dutch bank Radio, news and television organizat ...

and mainly subscribed by several banks, among them

Barclays Bank Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services. Barclays traces ...

Royal Bank of Scotland The Royal Bank of Scotland plc (RBS; gd, Banca Rìoghail na h-Alba) is a major retail and commercial bank in Scotland. It is one of the retail banking subsidiaries of NatWest Group, together with NatWest (in England and Wales) and Ulster Bank ...

, and Defoe Fournier & Cie.

References

External links

{{Wikinews, Work begins on world's longest underwater pipeline
Langeled
Statoil website
Langeled
Gassco website Natural gas pipelines in Norway Natural gas pipelines in the United Kingdom North Sea energy Pipelines under the North Sea Norway–United Kingdom relations Equinor 2006 establishments in England 2006 establishments in Norway