Mossmorran

If you look across the Firth of Forth to Fife from any of a number of vantage points in Edinburgh, the streaming plumes of Mossmorran are a characteristic feature. On the way back from Dundee this evening I made a detour to take a closer look.

The Mossmorran NGL (natural gas liquids) fractionation plant is a component part of the North Sea oil and gas field located near Cowdenbeath in Fife. After the gas is separated from oil on the platforms offshore, the gas is pumped ashore to St Fergus, south of Aberdeen. There, methane is separated from the rest of the gas product and is sent to a neighbouring National Grid plant, leaving the remaining NGL to be piped 140 miles to Mossmorran. At the Mossmorran NGL fractionation plant, natural gas fluid is separated by distillation into ethane, propane, butane and natural gasoline. The ethane is then piped to an adjacent ethylene cracker plant operated by ExxonMobil for further processing and cracking. The propane and butane is chilled, liquefied and stored on site within double integrity tanks, and the gasoline is also stored on site within floating roof tanks. These liquids are then transported via pipeline to the marine terminal at Braefoot Bay on the Firth of Forth for loading onto ships for export. As well as the Brent fields the plants at St. Fergus and Mossmorran also process gas from the recently installed Goldeneye Gas Platform. (Due acknowledgment to Wikipedia)


Nikon D800 + 24-85 zoom + tripod