Sture Terminal (Norwegian: Stureterminalen) is an oil terminal at Stura in Øygarden municipality, 50 km (31 mi) northwest of Bergen, Norway.[1] The terminal, which is located on Alvøy island, receives oil and condensate (light oil) from Oseberg, Veslefrikk, Brage, Oseberg Sør, Oseberg Øst, Tune and Huldra fields through 115 km (71 mi) Oseberg Transport System (OTS) and oil from Grane oil field through 212 km (132 mi) Grane oil pipeline.[2][3]

Sture Terminal
Map
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Location
CountryNorway
LocationØygarden
Coordinates60°37′17″N 4°50′16″E / 60.621389°N 4.837778°E / 60.621389; 4.837778
Details
OpenedDecember 1, 1988
Operated byPetoro AS
Owned byNorway
Type of harbourOil and Gas Terminal
Statistics
Annual cargo tonnage6.3 million barrels (1.00×10^6 m3)

History

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The Sture terminal began its operations on 1 December 1988. On 30 November 1988 the first oil from the Oseberg field reached the Sture terminal. It had travelled by 115 kilometer pipeline for 4 days at depths as low as 360 meters with a speed of 1 km/h. The terminal celebrated its 20-year anniversary in 2008[4] The Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy approved an upgrade to the facility in March 1998. As per the upgrade, a fractionation plant would process unstabilized crude oil from Oseberg into stabilized oil and an LPG blend. The plant became operational in December 1999 and the LPG blend produced in the plant is exported by ship or delivered through the Vestprosess pipeline between Kollsnes, Stura, Mongstad.[2]

Ownership

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The Sture terminal has the same ownership shares as in Oseberg Transport System (OTS):

Company Share
Petoro AS 48.38%[5]
Norsk Hydro 22.24%
Statoil ASA 14.0%
TotalEnergies Exploration Norge AS[6] 8.65%
Mobil Development Norway 4.33%
Norske Conoco A/S 2.4%

The exception is the LPG export facilities which are a property of Norsk Hydro (the refrigerated LPG storage and transfer system to ships) and Vestprosess DA (export facility to Vestprosess).[2]

Technical features

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The terminal has two jetties which allows to load up to 300,000 tonnes onto oil tankers. It also has five rock caverns for crude oil storage with a total capacity of 6.3 million barrels.[7] Additionally, there is a 60,000 m3 rock cavern for storage of LPG and a 200,000 m3 ballast water cavern in the terminal. Separate unit for recovering of volatile organic compounds (VOC), environmentally important during loading of tankers is also in operation. Nearly 250-260 crude oil and LPG carriers go through Sture terminal each year[2][8]

Production

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Nearly 25% of Norway's oil production passes through Sture terminal.[1] In 2009, after StatoilHydro shut down six oil and gas fields along with the Sture terminal, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate had the following production 2009 expectations for fields exporting oil through Sture terminal:

Field name bbl/day[8]
Oseberg 75,000
Grane 148,000
Huldra 3,000
Veslefrikk 13,000

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b "Logstor Oil & Gas project description". Archived from the original on 2008-11-14. Retrieved 2009-12-02.
  2. ^ a b c d "Sture crude oil terminal". Scandinavian Oil and Gas Magazine. 2007-07-29. Retrieved 2009-12-02. [dead link]
  3. ^ Statoil information on Sture
  4. ^ "When the Oseberg oil reached Sture". Statoil News & Media. 2008-11-30. Retrieved 2009-12-02.
  5. ^ "Oseberg Transport System (OTS)". Scandinavian Oil and Gas Magazine. 2007-07-29. Archived from the original on 2007-05-13. Retrieved 2009-12-02.
  6. ^ "TotalFinaElf factbook 2000" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-12-07. Retrieved 2009-12-02.
  7. ^ Statoil. Sture
  8. ^ a b Wojciech Moskwa; James Jukwey (2009-06-09). "UPDATE 2-StatoilHydro shuts 6 fields, terminal for repairs". Reuters. Retrieved 2009-12-02.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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