In 1997, the Ormen Lange gas field was discovered off the western coast of
Norway.
It was the second-largest natural gas discovery on the Norwegian shelf
and has the potential to produce around 20 billion cubic meters of gas
each year. Ormen Lange, which means “the long serpent,” is
approximately 40 kilometers long and eight kilometers wide and lies
about 1,000 meters below sea level.

The gas field will be
operational in 2007 and will be equipped with seabed installations at
depths ranging from 800 to 1,100 meters. The gas will be transferred
through a pipeline from production platforms to a processing plant at Nyhamna, Norway, and then exported via a 1,200-kilometer undersea pipeline to Easington on the east coast of the United Kingdom , and to other locations on the coast of continental Europe via a distribution center on the
island of
Sleipner in the
North Sea .

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