Equinor’s involvement at Mongstad now includes an oil refinery (Equinor Refining AS), an NGL processing plant (Vestprosess), a crude oil terminal (MTDA), a heating plant and the world’s largest technology centre for CO2 capture from flue gas (TCM).
Crude oil arrives from the offshore installations Johan Sverdrup, Troll B and Troll C to the terminal at Mongstad through an 83 kilometre long pipeline. There is also a separate pipeline for wet gas from the onshore plants Kollsnes and Sture. The harbour at Mongstad is also Europe’s second largest in terms of tonnage with around 1500 ships calling every year.
The refinery at Mongstad employs around 950 permanent employees and about 65 apprentices. During normal operations, approximately 400 supplier staff are also contracted each year, mainly within maintenance, modification, catering, cleaning and guard and security services.
The refinery is the largest in Norway, and medium-sized in a European perspective. Most of the refinery’s production consists of petrol, diesel and aviation fuel.
Mongstad’s gasoline refining capacity is sufficient to cover around four times Norway’s annual consumption, and 1.5 times Norway’s fuel consumption. Other products from the refinery include LPG, naphtha, aviation fuel, diesel, gasoil, heavy fuel oil, and sulphur. Petroleum coke is also produced here, and is used to make anodes for the aluminium industry.
The Mongstad Terminal (MTDA)
MTDA Mongstadterminalen (Mongstad Terminal DA, MTDA) plays an important part in Norway’s crude oil exports. A large part of all Equinor-produced oil on the Norwegian shelf, including the state’s share, is stored temporarily at the Mongstad terminal prior to export to customers in North America, Europe and Asia.
The Mongstad terminal receives oil mainly through two pipelines from Troll B and Troll C and connected oil fields, and one pipeline from Johan Sverdrup. The storage capacity in the underground caverns is 9.44 million barrels. MTDA is owned by Equinor (65%) and the Norwegian State (35%), and Equinor is the operator.
NGL is piped to Mongstad from Kollsnes via Sture. NGL is split into naphtha, propane and butane at the Vestprosess plant. Vestprosess is owned by the State (41%), Equinor (34%), North Sea Infrastructure AS (23%) and ConocoPhillips (2%).
The heat plant at Mongstad was originally a combined heat and power plant built in 2010, which in June 2022 was converted into a heat plant. The plant converts flue gas surplus from the refinery at Mongstad into heat (steam).
TCM Mongstad
Mongstad is also home to the world’s largest technology centre for development and testing of CO2 capture technology, TCM Mongstad. The plant commenced operations in 2013, and it is owned by Gassnova (36%), Equinor (22%), Shell (22%) and Total Energy (22%). The know-how obtained from the TCM facility is an important contributor to the development of carbon capture technology (CCS).
TCM combined CO2 capture capacity is about 100,000 tonnes per annum, removing carbon dioxide from the refinery’s two flue gas sources – which have a composition of 3.6 to 14% CO2.
Equinor is operator of TCM.
