The giant serpent Ormen Lange, managing the new key provider of natural gas to Europe from beneath the deep waters of the Norwegian Sea
Authors: Hansen Bengt Lie 
Published: October 2008

Ormen Lange is the name of the second-largest Norwegian gas field and was discovered and identified by Hydro in 1997. The Ormen Lange field comprises four key project features: The offshore subsea solution, approximately 100 km off the northwest coast of Norway, with templates, manifolds and pipelines; the onshore process and gas export facilities at Nyhamna, on the coast of Møre and Romsdal County; the gas export transportation system between Norway and the UK, through a tie-in to the Sleipner field installation as a distribution connector; and the Easington gas reception terminal in the UK. The Ormen Lange field development project is of vital importance, not only to its owners, but also to Norway - making the country the third-biggest exporter of natural gas worldwide. On December 4, 2003, a plan for development and operation (PDO) was submitted to the Norwegian authorities, to embark on the project's execution phase. The project has been subjected to extraordinary, and in particular technical and commercial challenges which have required the development of and a focus on new management systems and systematic work processes. This paper provides an introduction to the elements that collectively represent the entire Ormen Lange field development, including the key technical and commercial challenges, as well as the management strategy, utilizing systematic work processes to achieve alignment and efficient progress while preserving the environment, personal health and assets.

Introduction

The Ormen Lange field is the first deepwater project on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, and is currently the largest oil and gas development worldwide. Through this project we have moved offshore developments out of the medium depth waters in the North Sea to the new and exciting deepwater areas of the Norwegian Sea. When Ormen Lange comes onstream in October 2007, it will have also contributed to significantly improving the Norwegian gas export infrastructure by increasing volume capacity by 25%. The field's annual gas production of 21.4 billion cm is equivalent to total end consumption of energy in Norway. If all the gas is exported only to the UK, it will cover between 15 to 20% of the country's total near-future gas demand. The giant serpent, Ormen Lange, reaching all the way from Nyhamna in Norway to Easington on the east coast of England, will be the longest and largest subsea pipeline ever built, with 42" and 44" diameters and a length exceeding 1,200 km. This development, as a whole, is not near the end. It's not even close to the beginning of the end. It has, by submission of the PDO to the Norwegian authorities on December 4, 2003, merely commenced on the end of the beginning!

Fig. 1. An image showing the Nyhamna coastline and out 100 km northwest to the field location.(Available in full paper)

The Ormen Lange and Langeled project names

Most of the oil and gas fields - on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS) are named after characters drawn from Norse Viking mythology. Ormen Lange is no exception. During the Viking period, it was believed that the world was an islandsurrounded by an endless sea on all sides.