Mittelplate

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The oil platform Mittelplate.

Mittelplate is Germany’s largest oil field. It was first tapped from the homonymous concrete oil platform Mittleplate-A. It lies in the North Sea off the coast off Dithmarschen on the southern edge of the Wadden Sea National Parks. By the 1950s, geologists suspected oil off the German coast. Preliminary test borings in the 1960s did indeed turn up indications of oil, though not in economically profitable quantities. The oil crisis of 1973 and 1979 raised awareness of indigenous oil sources. In 1980 and 1981, test borings in the Mittelplate vicinity found oil in several sandstone layers.

In 1985, the construction of Mittelplate Island finally began. It was a sand island surrounded by steel piles. In the fall of 1986, 3 test bores were sunk from Mittelplate which went into production in October of 1987. This pilot project ran until 1991 and proved to be a success.

The size of the deposit was adjusted upward to over 100 million tons, of which 15 million tons were extracted by June 2005. The annual produciton of Mittelplate Island amounts to 900,000 tons of oil. Under prevailing conditions, about 40 million tons are still economically extractable. According to statements from the business consortium, about 65% of the remaining economically extractable German petroleum supply is located here. The oil lies in several layers between 2000 and 3000 meters deep. The economic value amounts to several billion Euros according to the operating companies. The platform is operated by RWE Dea AG and Wintershall AG.

Since 2000, nearly horizontal borings (some up to about 9200 meters long) have been extracting from the eastern part of the field directly from land on Dieksand / Friedrichskoog. The oil is piped from there to Brunsbüttel and onward to oil refineries in Hemmingstedt.

Until 2005, oil was brought by oil transport barges (ships 46 meters long, 18 meters wide and 2 meters deep) from Mittelplate itself to the oil port in Brunsbüttel. In the summer of 2005, after ten years of preparation, an 8 km long pipeline was laid from the platform through the mudflats to Friedrichskoog and onward to Dieksand. This should increase annual extraction capability up to 1.6 million tons. Since the pipes cross the maximum protection zone of the national park, they and especially their construction were not without controversy. Nonetheless, the argument that a subterranean pipeline would be safer and more sparing of the environment than transport by ship finally convinced the environmental protection authorities.

Currently, a new 70 meter high drilling rig is being built on the island. It is one of the most modern rigs in operation in Europe and is capable of sinking bore holes within a radius of up to 6000 meters. The previous radius was up to 2000 meters. This way the oil fields of Mittelplate Island can be better explored.