ENGLISH - Gassco

Kårstø’s key role
Kårstø north of Stavanger has been transformed over the past 25 years from poor pasture to one of the world’s largest processing
plants for natural gas. Its capacity has been increased fivefold since operation began in 1985 through expansions, modifications and
the installation of new equipment. And almost NOK 30 billion has been invested at the site since the Storting (parliament) approved
the Statpipe development in 1981.
With more than 30 fields tied back to Kårstø via
pipelines, millions of cubic metres of gas and
unstabilised condensate flow into the plant every
day.
Its original purpose was to receive and treat gas
from fields in the northern North Sea, and this
remains one of its main jobs. First gas arrived on
25 July 1985, with dry gas starting its journey to
Emden in Germany on 15 October of the same year.
The Statpipe system carries gas from the northern
North Sea to Kårstø.
value creation. Kårstø is an important link in the
value chain from reservoir to European customers.
Fields in the Norwegian Sea were also connected
to the European gas market with the development
of Åsgard, construction of the Åsgard Transport
and Europipe II pipelines, and expansion of the
Kårstø plant.
Completed on 1 October 2005, the Kårstø expansion
project 2005 (KEP2005) made it possible to
receive rich gas from the Kristin field via Åsgard
Transport. Capacity at the plant was increased by
20 per cent to 88 million scm per day. A plant to
remove carbon dioxide from the sales gas was
also built as part of KEP2005.
A total of 638 cargoes of propane, butane, ethane,
naphtha and stabilised condensate were shipped
from Kårstø in 2006.
Condensate is piped to Kårstø from the Sleipner
area of the North Sea. At the plant, it is stabilised
and fractionated in a dedicated facility which
became operational on 1 October 1993. Roughly
four million tonnes of stabilised condensate are
shipped from the plant every year.
An expansion in 2005 increased Kårstø’s ethane
production capacity by more than 50 per cent to
950 000 tonnes per annum.
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