Terminal manager Tor Frostestad thanked project manager Bjarte Bergset (left) for doing a great job and handed over flowers at Thursday’s official opening of the VOC plant at Mongstad. (All photos: Helge Hansen)
The formal opening of took place in the sunshine Thursday morning witnessed by a number of guests from partners, contractors and municipal authorities.
The plant, which went into operation at the end of June, is a VOC plant. It captures volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in oil vapour which are released when crude oil tankers are loaded.
The gas is purified and piped back into the hold as oil components in liquid form.
The VOC plant at Mongstad is the first of a series of environmental initiatives at the Mongstad terminal.
“Oil vapour capture and recovery is a type of measure that serves well to support StatoilHydro's environmental ambitions. The VOC plant at Mongstad recovers at least 80 percent of the VOC emissions that were previously released into the air,” says Mongstad’s terminal manager Tor Frostestad.
Taking the lead
The Norwegian Pollution Control Authority (SFT) has followed the VOC efforts attentively. Assistant Director General Harald Sørby is satisfied that StatoilHydro may now share important experience gained from the VOC plant at Mongstad, .
“A potential to reduce emissions existed at Mongstad. The new plant and sophisticated technology in operation demonstrate how this can be solved. Reducing VOC emissions is currently a vital environmental concern, and it is important that somebody is taking the lead", Sørby said.
Egil Kai Elde, head of health, safety and environment in Manufacturing and Marketing, said that for StatoilHydro, getting the VOC plant in place at Mongstad was a matter of urgency with regard to government requirements.
”The new oil vapour recovery plant came online by the deadlines set by the SFT, according to project manager Bjarte Bergset.
“It is also a good, tangible project that helps us in our targeted efforts to reduce harmful emissions to the air and environment.”
Local suppliers
The decision to build the plant at Mongstad was taken in 2006. In the run-up to the opening nearly 600,000 man-hours were spent by StatoilHydro's project team, contractors and engineering partners.
The plant has a price tag of NOK 615 million.
Carrying out the project demanded a lot of project manager Bjarte Bergset and his team. Owing the boom in Norway and the rest of Europe, delivery times for components, prices in general and the shortage of qualified personnel and suppliers presented challenges.
In view of the market situation, a strategy was chosen to award a large number of smaller contracts instead of one big one. This presented numerous opportunities for local firms from Bergen and the Nordhordland region, in addition to the biggest players, which have been Aker Cool Sorption and Terne AS from Mongstad.
During the official opening Mongstad manager Kjell Petter Aarnes pointed out that the VOC plant was the first of a series of environmental projects underway at Mongstad.
”We have now seen that the technology works as intended. It’s good to know that we are now part of the solution to a problem, and not just the very problem. The VOC plant thus helps build a positive reputation for Mongstad,” Aarnes stated.
Background:
- When crude oil is loaded onto tankers and production vessels, volatile organic compounds /VOCs) are released from oil vapour into the atmosphere.
- Together with nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sunlight, VOCs help to form harmful ground-level ozone.
- Capturing VOC emissions in a closed system makes it possible to purify the gases and then pipe the crude oil components back into the hold in liquid form.
- VOC-reducing measures during oil loading operations offshore and onshore have increasingly been required by the Norwegian Pollution Control Authority and are also part of international environmental agreements.
- The Mongstad plant is currently the most recent of several that StatoilHydro has developed, tested and put into operation over more than ten years to reduce emissions when oil is loaded.
- In the 1990s StatoilHydro began to collaborate with the oil and shipping business to install VOC plants for shuttle tankers on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS) In addition, for several years Statoil Hydro has had such installations on its production vessels Norne and Åsgard A in the Norwegian Sea, as well as on shore at the Sture terminal.
- In 2007 Norwegian emissions of VOC gases totalled 191,370 tonnes. Of this, 6 per cent was emissions from the Mongstad terminal and refinery. The oil and gas industry accounted for 39 per cent of national emissions, 90 per cent of which in turn are accounted for by offshore loading.
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