The facility currently holds about 500 million cubic metres of gas in subterranean caverns created by leaching out the salt. The partners have decided to almost double the storage capacity, with further expansions possible at a later stage.

Norwegian gas has been stored at Etzel since 1993, and the facility is currently used to store gas from such sources as the Kårstø processing plant north of Stavanger.

The store is located near the landfall terminals for Norwegian gas at Dornum and Emden in northern Germany. From there it is tied into the German transport network, thus helping ensure continuous deliveries of Norwegian gas to the German market.

"In times when prices fluctuate a great deal, we can also make use of the storage to deliver gas when and where the demand is greatest," says May Mannes, vice president for business development in Natural Gas.

Statoil Deutschland is operator of the Etzel gas storage, and has a 20.1 per cent interest in the existing storage capacity. E.ON Ruhrgas is the major partner with 74.8 per cent. The other partners are Hydro Energie Deutschland, Total Etzel Gaslager and ConocoPhillips Germany.

Statoil delivered about 15 billion cubic metres of gas to Germany in 2004, and this will increase to almost 20 billion in 2005.

In 2007, the group's share of the German market will rise to more than 20 per cent.