North Sea Infrastructure
NOGAT has launched the pre-FEED (Front-End Engineering and Design) phase of Project NORNET.
The project aims to establish a direct connection between the Norwegian and Dutch gas infrastructures in the North Sea.
Following a feasibility study, this marks an important step in further assessing the technical, economic and operational aspects of the connection and initiating the permitting process.
With relatively limited infrastructure upgrades, the Dutch NOGAT system can be connected to the Norwegian gas infrastructure via the A6-F3 pipeline.
This would create both the first direct gas connection between Norway and the Netherlands and an additional European import route through Den Helder.
The project would enhance security of supply, strengthen strategic resilience and reduce overall system costs in the Netherlands and North-West Europe.
The new connection is expected to have a transport capacity of more than 4 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas per year. This is equivalent to approximately 15% of total Dutch gas demand and around 30% of the high-calorific gas expected to remain necessary for Dutch industry in the longer term.
Similar to Dutch-produced North Sea gas, Norwegian gas transported through this connection has a carbon footprint that is 30 to 50% lower than imported LNG.
