Barents Sea Gas Infrastructure Projects

Previously, extending the pipeline all the way up north to the Barents Sea has been believed to be too expensive. The new new study, however, highlight new pipelines as a serious alternative for bringing the gas from the Barents Sea to the markets, mainly in Europe. The other options are to increase the capacity at the Melkøya LNG plant and building a new LNG plant. Building a pipeline and connecting it to the existing transport systems in the Norwegian Sea could be done either by developing a traditional processing plant in connection with the Melkøya LNG plant or develop a simpler processing plant. Estimated length of a pipeline from Melkøya near Hammerfest on the Barents Sea coast to the current Åsgard Transport pipe is about 1,000 kilometers and to Polarled pipe some 830 kilometers. The study has calculated the costs to be minimum 4,2 billion Norwegian kroner (€400 million) for the new pipeline, while the costs for a processing plant for the gas would range from 12 to 23 billion kroner (€1,2 to 2,3 billion).